[HN Gopher] Bento3D
___________________________________________________________________
Bento3D
Author : sdenton4
Score : 133 points
Date : 2024-05-21 01:17 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (polar-tadpole-97b.notion.site)
(TXT) w3m dump (polar-tadpole-97b.notion.site)
| fattah25 wrote:
| Interesting web.
| eternityforest wrote:
| I really like the concept, but I greatly prefer just using a
| piece of filament for the latch bendy element, and the hinge.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| I have come to be a big fan of small steel dowel pins, though I
| do wonder about them ultimately loosening in PLA as a result of
| (causing) cold flow.
| eternityforest wrote:
| PETG pins are not as strong, but they do seem to stay in
| place very well even with very loose tolerances. It's not
| really perfectly straight, so I'm guessing the springiness
| and bent shape keeps it in place, rather than needing a
| friction fit.
|
| Steel definitely has some advantages though,
| crooked-v wrote:
| If the precision is as good as advertised, this would be
| extremely useful for board game box organizers.
| ehnto wrote:
| The precision should be no trouble, but you should understand
| your printers tolerance capabilities.
|
| If you print a 30mm hole and a 30mm box to go in it, it might
| not fit, usually you would oversize the hole or undersize the
| box. By how much depends on your printers characteristics. Easy
| to test by printing said box then measuring how close to 30mm
| it was.
| feverzsj wrote:
| I don't think 3D printing materials are suitable for lunchbox.
| mwill wrote:
| I don't think it's meant to be a literal bento, the page shows
| photos with bolts and markers.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| there is a large selection of food safe filaments like TPU
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| This is a well-worn topic, but FDM has many potential issues
| that make food-safe printing significantly challenging.
|
| It is alas not enough to use a food-safe filament; you need a
| food-safe extruder drive and nozzle, and almost certainly
| will need print post-processing to make the printed item
| physically food-safe.
|
| The issue with a lunchbox is acute because it has potential
| contact with individual items of food for hours at a time, on
| a regular basis. It's the perfect setup for bacterial growth
| in the layer lines -- close to the worst-case scenario.
|
| There would be ways to mitigate that (liners etc.) but
| arguably even a food-safe filament would need considerable
| vapour smoothing or coating.
|
| Hard TPUs up at the Shore 75D range would be tough enough for
| the job but they would scuff up while cleaning, and are
| resistant to coatings etc.
|
| (Side note being that 75D TPU is quite capricious to print.)
| varispeed wrote:
| Have you printed with TPU? It's very porous.
| ehnto wrote:
| There are food safe materials, although you want to post
| process some to remove porousness that can harbour bacteria.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Right. And a lunchbox would have to be close to the worst-
| case scenario for an item where 3D printing would actually be
| used.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| I've also thought that - just rechecked and found a useful link
| https://formlabs.com/uk/blog/guide-to-food-safe-3d-printing/
| mg wrote:
| The headline says Bento3D is a web tool that
| allows you to create 3D printable dividers and
| toolboxes with millimeter precision.
|
| Is the "millimeter" precision noteworthy? This is kind of a CAD
| program, right? Why would it have trouble with any precision?
| Isn't it just juggling numbers?
| serf wrote:
| it's noteworthy because a lot of similar solutions using
| OpenSCAD (progmatic on-demand creation of boxes/containers) are
| written poorly, and in many cases they only allow an arbitrary
| precision as set by the authors.
|
| >This is kind of a CAD program, right? Why would it have
| trouble with any precision? Isn't it just juggling numbers?
|
| this one kind of made me laugh only because of my familiarity
| with the history of CAD programs and what poor tasting dog-food
| has been served.
|
| There is a long history of conversion errors, process errors,
| arbitrary formats and unit types, whatever. A CAD program that
| truly 'juggles numbers' is the holy grail, and the high tech
| solutions nowadays are getting pretty close to getting it right
| -- but it's been a journey and they're still not really there;
| every CAD suite has a list of no-nos that must always be kept
| in mind, and they're not engineering/science no-nos, they're
| "it'll break the software when I try to create a chamfer around
| this type of edge." kind of no-nos that are quirky and
| specific.
| aredox wrote:
| On the other hand, this here is just a program to design a
| box...
| atoav wrote:
| To be honest I'd also assume to be able to create arbitrarily
| sized boxes.
|
| Last time I used OpenSCAD I didn't notice any arbitrary
| precision limitations -- maybe the ones who expose interfaces
| to the web have them, but even there I don't seen how
| anything but millimeters would make sense (then again I live
| in Europe).
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Really cool!
| torginus wrote:
| Honestly this is pretty cool, but I'd encourage anyone getting
| into 3D printing to learn CAD tools well enough so they can make
| these for themselves in Fusion 360 or Onshape
| SnaKeZ wrote:
| I confirm, I have just started exploring the world of 3D
| printing and I am therefore also learning how to 3D model with
| Fusion 360. The software is very powerful and has already
| allowed me to create some models that I am very satisfied with,
| an example of a parametric junction box:
|
| https://www.printables.com/model/871589-parametric-waterproo...
|
| https://makerworld.com/en/models/456321#profileId-366679
|
| Moreover, the work is the result of suggestions obtained from
| /r/functionalprint on Reddit.
| __jonas wrote:
| I'd like to add: Tinkercad is honestly pretty great for simple
| stuff, there are things missing of course but it's great how
| intuitive they've made it, it feels a bit like Figma to me, the
| selection of tools is so small that you can kind of figure
| everything out by yourself.
|
| I really wish it wasn't online-only and closed source though
| (same as figma I suppose)
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| For me it's not the online-only or closed nature of the
| thing, so much as the fact the canvas isn't high-DPI, which I
| find unreasonably maddening (I am unreasonably snobbish in
| this regard).
|
| And the grid-oriented working method isn't ideal for me,
| though I confess I've not gone back to look at TinkerCAD much
| since learning OpenSCAD and FreeCAD; it may be that a better-
| informed visit would show me where I was judging it too
| hardly.
|
| But it is amazing what people do with it, and while I have my
| issues with AutoCAD, it's clear that TinkerCAD is a truly
| liberating tool for an enormous number of people, and my
| criticisms may be getting into gift-horse-examination
| territory.
| __jonas wrote:
| I think your points are fair, it is a bit fiddly, I just
| enjoy how little friction there is to getting started and
| making something simple.
|
| I just needed to make a couple adjustments to an STL this
| week, I haven't done any CAD in months, in principle I have
| used Fusion before and had a nice experience with it, but
| since it's been a while I don't remember any of it and
| would have to look at some reference to get back into it,
| with tinkercad I could just drop the model in and make the
| adjustments I need by playing around with the shapes they
| provide. It didn't feel very "precision engineering" like
| but sometimes it just needs to be close enough.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Right. I mean that is the thing, I guess. For people who
| just want to get some stuff done in a way that makes
| sense, TinkerCAD is about as low-friction as it gets.
|
| It's also arguably better at hacking on STLs than a bunch
| of higher-end CAD packages; it feels like that's been a
| focus of their efforts.
|
| Personally what I'd really like to see alongside it is a
| sort of Scratch-blocks-based OpenSCAD/Build123D type
| thing -- this may already exist?
| car wrote:
| Neat idea! Tried it, at the moment the model files have open
| edges, PrusaSlicer croaks on them.
| lysp wrote:
| https://youtu.be/qBfD-cQYJxc
|
| > If you want the best surface finish possible, follow the
| proper print orientation guidelines outlined in the docs. It
| might not be mentioned here, but I had to repair the model. The
| outer box showed problems with the geometry in PrusaSlicer, so
| I used PrusaSlicer on Windows to fix that. I'm not sure if the
| repair feature is available in the Mac version, but you can
| also use NP Faab Services or Meshmixer for geometry repair.
| Just be aware that the box will print as a solid object unless
| it's repaired well.
|
| Saw a video reviewing this yesterday - above is a quote from
| it.
| car wrote:
| Thank you for pointing this out. It worked, even on Mac.
| hackcasual wrote:
| Really nice workflow for a really common 3d print use case. I'd
| like to see the lid re-worked to print without support (the tall
| standing orientation is also asking for it to get knocked over).
| Not sure why they insist on 0.1mm layer height. That makes prints
| take forever.
| nicexe wrote:
| Very impressive.
|
| The only thing that looks a bit bad is that the models produced
| need to be fixed before being able to be sliced.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| Indeed. It looks to me like the export here is probably ThreeJS
| STLExporter? It is known for creating non-watertight models,
| unfortunately.
|
| PrusaSlicer seems to do an adequate job tidying these up
| automatically.
|
| I think it's not particularly uncommon for STLs exported from
| common CAD packagers to have _some_ of these issues, though
| this is a lot.
|
| Super-nice otherwise though -- a neat design. And in general I
| think client-side tools like this have a lot of potential.
| Three.js opens up potential for doing task-focussed things
| without using OpenSCAD on a server or a full emscripten build
| of OCC (like Cascade Studio does)
| b20000 wrote:
| how well will these stand the test of time?
| code_biologist wrote:
| It will match or exceed commercial products if you pick a
| strong material and print settings. I've printed a ton of
| toolbox dividers, bins, clamps, hangers, etc out of PLA and
| PETG and 98% are still going strong after 4+ years. The things
| I've broken have had either literal hammers or my entire body
| weight land on them.
|
| PLA is common, really easy to print, vaguely biodegradable, and
| strong -- but it is brittle, will deform under load, and will
| degrade in UV light.
|
| PETG, roughly the plastic in soda bottles, is a good choice for
| functional prints and addresses all the problems with PLA but
| is slightly less strong and is more difficult to print fine
| detail with.
|
| ABS/ASA will produce prints with strength and durability truly
| like commercial products, but you need a pretty decent printer
| + enclosure to avoid warping. Also it produces toxic fumes
| while printing.
|
| Tradeoffs.
| ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
| > Tradeoffs.
|
| Yep. You don't get out of it without learning some materials
| science...
| Mashimo wrote:
| Pretty neat. But an option for m3 screws would be great. I would
| guess more people have them laying around compared to m2.
| varispeed wrote:
| You can always sand m3 screw down and rethread.
| macmac wrote:
| Do the video links for other people? I am getting a AWS S3 error.
| varispeed wrote:
| Wow. This is amazing. I spent ages trying to find boxes so I
| could neatly store batches of parts for assembly. Now I can
| generate boxes with exact dimensions. This is great!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-05-21 12:00 UTC)