Using OpenSCAD to build custom 3D pieces Build Your Own Body

Tutorials – OpenSCAD

Article from Issue 223/2019

Author(s): Paul Brown

OpenSCAD lets you use simple scripts to build 3D bodies from primitive shapes that you can then send to your 3D printer. It also lets you create custom shapes for pieces and objects. In this article, we look at two ways to do just that.

In last month's installment [1], you saw how to use primitive 3D bodies (cubes, spheres, cylinders, etc.) to build complex 3D objects. Apart from combining basic primitives, there are more ways of making bodies in OpenSCAD [2]. One is to extrude them from 2D shapes; another is to build them from a bunch of vertices and faces you define in arrays.

Let's see how both of these work by building an "arm" that will let you attach a sports camera to a printer's hotbed. This arm could look something like what you can see in Figure 1. With the arm attached to the bed, you will be able to monitor your print with the action always in the center of the frame.