- Joined
- Nov 3, 2004
- Messages
- 3,161
- Reaction score
- 1,545
- Points
- 337
- Location
- Bay Area CA
- Printer Model
- CR-10, i560 ,MFC-7440N
I had an idea for a practical little crate for organizing project supplies in my garage: make the base and all four walls print flat, then assemble them with filament instead of hinges. I could not find quite what I had in mind, so I tried using AI as a hands-on design collaborator.
The result is a parametric flat-pack crate with vented walls and bottom, carry handles, stacking features, interlocking corner knuckles, tabs that seat into the base, and short pieces of ordinary 1.75 mm filament that lock the whole thing together. The underside rails were a particularly nice surprise... they stiffen the vented base and keep the bottom openings useful when the crate is sitting on a shelf.
Here are a couple of photos from the project:
The small green version was physically printed and assembled on my A1 Mini in PLA. I also made a tiny test coupon first to prove that the tabs and filament-lock connection actually felt right in the real world.
If you would like the full story, more photos and animations, plus the downloadable files, I wrote it all up here:
I Used AI to Build a Flat-Pack 3D-Printed Crate
The result is a parametric flat-pack crate with vented walls and bottom, carry handles, stacking features, interlocking corner knuckles, tabs that seat into the base, and short pieces of ordinary 1.75 mm filament that lock the whole thing together. The underside rails were a particularly nice surprise... they stiffen the vented base and keep the bottom openings useful when the crate is sitting on a shelf.
Here are a couple of photos from the project:
The small green version was physically printed and assembled on my A1 Mini in PLA. I also made a tiny test coupon first to prove that the tabs and filament-lock connection actually felt right in the real world.
If you would like the full story, more photos and animations, plus the downloadable files, I wrote it all up here:
I Used AI to Build a Flat-Pack 3D-Printed Crate
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