Found a new silly use for my 3d printer

[cloudscapes]

When I'm designing a pedal/module, I've always enjoyed working on the design layout in 3D so I can properly plan where parts go and make sure pots/buttons/leds/etc are in a place that make sense when they're all PCB-mounted. Make sure the lugs of a pot aren't bumping into another pot, or over the edge of the board, sort of thing.

So I was doing this here design and thinking holy shit, this is super dense. Is the control layout too dense even for me? Then had one of those lightbulb over head moments, prepped the model a little bit, slammed it in the printer and a couple hours later I had something tactile that I could touch to see if everything felt in nice places! Neat!

Probably not gonna do it very often. Only for the designs with the most dense/convoluted control layouts like this one.



I didn't print it on the box, in case you're wondering.

[BetterOffShred]

Is this the ring mod you were working on? Looks great

What software do you use? I've been messing around with Kicad..which does 3d modelling as well..

[cloudscapes]

I use 3ds max (it's not strictly for electronics), it's what I've been using for 3d since the early 2000s. and work provides me with a home-use license. otherwise I'd use blender.

[Jero]

That's pretty rad. Not a bad use of available tech...Most importantly, are you pleased with the result?

[cloudscapes]

That's pretty rad. Not a bad use of available tech...Most importantly, are you pleased with the result?

The button layout or print quality? Wasn't going for the latter, just needed something quick.
Layout's been tweaked a bit since. The print certainly helped with getting a feel for it.

[Jero]

Yea I meant the layout haha