lisaviolet's diary

I have an Ender3 Pro 3D printer.

I have a big container full of all of my stamp pads. Some are pretty old. Some are pretty new. But they were all just thrown in the storage box. I tried stacking them, but they'd fall over. Using plastic ziplock bags were fine for the smaller pads, but not for the regular sized pads.

I got to thinking that maybe I could make little storage containers for the stamp pads and I checked out thingiverse.com (I have an account there, the stuff is all free - my user name is....wait for it....lisaviolet), going through the pages and pages of patterns. And I found one.

This one. The thing that grabbed me about this one is that it's customizable. You can change the size according to your needs. And it's stackable! The problem is the thingiverse customizer doesn't work. So, here's what happened.

I had to do a little research. I found a website forum where one of the users explains how to change the sizes without using the customizer.

First, I needed to click on the customizer link on the thingiverse page, then download the changed code. But the code wasn't changed. Which I realized after I started my first print. Boo. I'll post the code here since the thingiverse customizer page no longer comes up. And it didn't work anyway. This is the code for Ranger Mini Ink pads.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// Length of Box (X-Axis)
Length=127;       // [20:500]

// Width of Box (Y-Axis)
Width=39;       // [20:500]

// Height of Box (Z-Axis)
Height=58;       // [15:500]

// Wall Thickness
Wall=2;           // [0.5:0.1:5]

difference()
{
   union()
   {
       cube([Length, Width, Height - 5 - 2]);
       translate([0, 0, Height - 5 - 2]) hull()
       {
           translate([0, 0, -1]) cube([Length, Width, 1]);
           translate([-Wall, -Wall, 2]) cube([Length + Wall * 2, Width + Wall * 2, 5]);
       }
       translate([0, 0, Height]) cube([Length, Width, 2]);
   }

   translate([Wall, Wall, Wall]) cube([Length - Wall * 2, Width - Wall * 2, Height + Wall]);

   translate([-0.4, -0.4, Height - 5 + 0.1]) cube([Length + 0.8, Width + 0.8, 7]);
}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copy the text between the dashed lines in its entirety. Save as a TXT or SCAD file. I use MS notepad to make the necessary edits to only the top three measurements - the ones in red (height, width and length - all in millimeters). Leave the rest of the code as is. If you save as a TXT file, all you need to do is rename it SCAD to get it into a converter. I use anyconv.com to convert the SCAD file to STL, which is what the Ender3 uses.

I figure out the size that I want in inches, then use an online converter for inches to millimeters. My first mistakes were not taking the actual dimensions of the finished print. I was only doing the empty places when figuring out the size I need and was really confused why my pads wouldn't fit. You know, okay, this little box is 1.5" x 2", so let's do the conversion and start the print!

Yeah, 1.5" x 2" would be the INSIDE dimensions. Duh. No wonder it didn't fit. (And sadly, it took me a while to figure out why I was having this problem.) So, don't be like me and make that mistake.

Then I use the Cura software that came with my printer.

I didn't mess with any of the other measurements, I could have since these don't need to be heavy duty or anything, but I still haven't figured out how to do supports (being clueless about supports, my first attempt at a print that needed supports turned out quite badly - it was a glow in the dark weenie (dick) whistle for a friend, ended up in the trash). So many pies, so few fingers, yanno?

Anyway, if you have any questions I'll try to answer them. I'll try.

Here are some pictures of what I made in use. The larger ones took about twenty hours to print, the smaller took about ten hours, but I printed two at a time, so it was around twenty hours. As usual, there are larger images when you click on them. Over on my photo site. For more detail. Or something. I dunno, I'm lost.

This was printing when the power went out (and I was getting low on filament). You can see a line above the pinkish area. This is where the print resumed (yay!). A couple of hours later I changed out the color filament for black, since the color filament had almost run out. I was surprised how smoothly it went.

My ink stash, all nice and neat. The Colorbox cat eye inks are just stuffed in a bag. They're pretty old and dried out.

Ink pads stacked. And there's room for more! The pads at the right are Tsukineko inks, and they're fine in their little cases that they came with. Most of the other inks are Ranger.

The containers. I used some rainbow filament that I had that I didn't really care for the color, so it was great I found a use for it.

So, that's it. That's my storage fix for my pads. Brian suggested putting ink on the edges of the inks so I can see what color is there. I think that's a great idea. I'll put the ink on a small sticker and place it on the edge of the pad.

storage    photos    ink pads    hobbies    craftstuff    3d printing

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