Blog
Notes from the workshop behind the generators.
basics 12behind-the-scenes 7bug-reports 2cad 4editor 3enclosure 2gears 1geometry 18gifts 1gridfinity 3hose 1models 2rugged-box 3site 6vase 1
- A 3D printed phone stand in five shapes and five patterns, with a third of the plastic27 September 2026
The phone stand generator now draws a folded ribbon, a curled arch, a truss frame, a charging ledge that floats above its base or the classic block, ripples it with waves, zigzag, ridges or facets, and still prints on its side with no support.
- Lithophane from a photo: thickness, size and light for a gift that actually glows25 September 2026
How a lithophane turns a photo into wall thickness, the numbers that decide whether it glows or looks like a grey slab, how big it can get, and how to print and light one before the holidays.
- Why fillets break at corners, and the dumb idea that fixed mine24 September 2026
A fillet on one edge that runs into a rounded corner is the hardest case in the CAD editor I am building. I spent a week patching corners, then threw the patches out and let each edge cut its own groove.
- Fillet or chamfer: which edges to round, which to cut at 45 degrees, and why the bottom one is different18 September 2026
The bottom edge takes a chamfer, the vertical corners take a fillet, inside corners take the biggest fillet you can afford, and the reason is the same every time: a printer builds upward in layers, so the shape of an edge decides what hangs over what.
- Gridfinity specs and dimensions explained: the 42 mm grid, 7 mm units and where the magnets go17 September 2026
Every number in the Gridfinity standard, from the 42 mm pitch to the 6.5 x 2.4 mm magnet, with the bin sizes that fit common printer beds and a generator that builds any of them.
- PET bottle thread sizes: PCO-1881, PCO-1810 and the 38 mm neck, and how to print a cap that fits17 September 2026
The three neck finishes on almost every plastic bottle, with the diameter, pitch and thread height of each, and the clearance a printed cap needs to screw onto a molded neck.
- The CAD editor, three days later14 September 2026
Where the browser CAD stands after 18 releases in three days, which ghosts took the longest to kill, and what I am building next.
- I'm building a CAD editor in the browser11 September 2026
A hidden beta on alpaco.it can already sketch on any face, pad, pocket, revolve, fillet a single edge and rewind its own history. Here is what works and what fought back.
- Broken in a browser I never open6 September 2026
An anonymous one-line bug report from the pegboard generator revealed that the 3D view had never worked in Firefox. Not on one generator. On all thirty-six.
- "Printed threads: when they work and when to give up"6 September 2026
Three of my generators cut threads, from jar lids to M3 bolts, and each one taught me a different rule about pitch, depth and clearance. Here are the numbers that survived contact with plastic.