We have some rollarms for our Lovesac sactionals which have the odd annoyance of being round–so you can’t set a drink on them without risking it toppling over. Lovesac does sell some “coasters” for them $50 (when on sale), but that’s a bit much for a mild convenience factor. I thought this was a great opportunity for some 3D-printing. I checked for existing models and found many for the regular flat sides, which have nearly as much need for a coaster, but for which designing one is significantly simpler. So it was up to me to provide for the world.
A few rounds of doing test prints (just a sliver of the design, not the whole thing) and tweaking and I’m quite happy with the result. I designed it once in SolveSpace (the design application with which I’m most comfortable), but I really wanted all the edges to be rounded (no sharp corners!). SolveSpace doesn’t handle that very conveniently, but Dune 3D does and I’ve been meaning to give it a try. So, knowing what my end goal looked like I designed it again in Dune 3D and added all the edge rounding.
I’m quite happy with the result. It’s snug and feels secure. I printed it using 3% gyroid infill, but with 6% infill throughout the thin section at the top to provide additional strength since that area is going to receive the most force and provide the snugness by resisting flexing. That may not have been necessary, I don’t know, but it doesn’t add much extra filament. With the rounded corners you’ll want to use adaptive layer heights to help them come out cleanly. All these settings are included in the Bambu Studio 3mf file.
Total cost for the final print was about $4.50. The 3 test prints were about $0.30 a piece.
Note: the Dune 3D does not include the reference image I had loaded, so it will warn that the image file can’t be found. Shouldn’t affect the model itself.
