14 Coolest 3D Printer Creations
3D printing has become quite consumer-friendly in recent years. The cost of purchasing a 3D printer has gone down significantly since the early days. Companies which allow users to upload their designs and get them 3D printed have sprung up across various countries around the world.
The increasing popularity of 3D printers has resulted in thousands of different objects being created every day. The number and types of items are quite staggering and, at times, excessive. It has now become a task to sort through the various designs and actually find stuff that is useful.
We have compiled a list of what we think are the top 3D printing creations. We believe that these creations are not only great designs, but they also have a reasonably high utility value. We hope you find this list interesting.
1. Nanolet
If you like listening to music on your iPod and want to stay hands-free, then you can now 3D print a nanolet on which you can mount your iPod Nano.
You can wear your nanolet on your wrist while you work out, go on a bike ride, or are out traveling. A nanolet will wrap around nicely and stay in place even with body movements.
With 3D printing, one can vary the size and color of the nanolet. So depending on a person’s wrist size and color preference, custom-designed nanolets can be made individually for each person. The nanolet is one example where 3D printing’s strengths of low batch size and customizability are leveraged.
2. Egg Holder
One of the most interesting 3D printed products that we came across is the egg holder. Yes! The holder is literally shaped like a bunch of branches on a tree and gives the feeling of an egg being placed on it.
The egg holder has an intricate design and it is produced using a laser and sintered polyamide. The resulting 3D printed product is strong enough and flexible enough to hold a small or medium-sized egg.
The holder’s size and other characteristics can be customized since 3D printing allows on-demand production. One can create a set of different colored egg holders which match the various seasons of the year.
The customizability and the on-demand nature of production are why 3D printing is such disruptive technology in manufacturing.
3. Fish-shaped Gramophone
One can combine the principles of acoustics with modern media players and make a cool gramophone. Using a 3D printer, one can make a shark-shaped or dolphin-shaped docking station, with a large hollow open mouth, on which a smartphone or an iPod can be mounted.
The open mouth will act as a loudspeaker and amplify the sound from the phone/iPod. The mounted device will look like a dorsal fin. This 3D printed design will fit beautifully with any interior setup. One can make different shaped fishes and different colored fishes to fit the look of any room/table.
The hollow design of the fish gramophone will also save you the raw material cost. 3D printing a hollow structure is less time consuming as well.
4. Face-shaped Siri holder
Continuing with the consumer-tech theme, one can design a smartphone or iPhone holder in the shape of a human face. Then, when you turn on a voice assist app or Siri, it will feel like you are talking to a human face. It will seem like the human face is talking back to you. The experience might just be a whole lot better than talking to a metallic box i.e. a phone.
You can either design the face of a male, a female, or keep it neutral with an androgynous face. You can use 3D printing technology’s capability of designing complex hollow structures to create a mounting dock which allows you to easily access the phone’s main buttons. You can build the design with lots of spaces that allows the voice to travel through and for the screen to be partially visible.
The phone holder’s design can be made such that the overall piece blends nicely with your living room decor. So, surprise your guests and family members with a Siri-focused phone holder which will talk back and make them wonder where the voice is coming from.
5. Self-fastening Boxes
Simplicity is beautiful. That is what these self-fastening print-in-location boxes are. Print-in-place basically means printing something which ends up unfurling into something much larger than the print area of the 3D printer.
Print-in-place uses innovative designing by making use of joints, hinges, and other movement interfaces to produce something that is relatively larger and highly useful. A container or box has significant utility. One can use a ready-made Fusion360 file, available online, to scale up the size of the premade design and print any box that one desires.
3D printing allows the use of filaments of various colors which end up customizing the look and feel of the self-fastening 3D printed boxes as per the user’s preference. Self-fastening means there will be no additional components or locks attached. Everything is nicely made in one single piece.
6. Famous Leader’s Bust
Apple enthusiasts will appreciate having a reasonably sized bust of the great Steve Jobs. Sports fans will appreciate a bust of their team hero next to their TV or computer or in their game rooms. With 3D printing, one can pretty much create a very genuine-looking bust of any famous personalities that you revere and respect.
One can make a bust with multiple colors for various body parts like hair, face, beard, eyes, etc. Since 3D printing is a layer-by-layer process, using different colored reels for printing different parts of the face is possible.
7. iPad Stand
If you have an iPad and are looking for a really cool “foot” or stand on which you can mount your iPad vertically, then you can now create one yourself. PadFoot, as this product is known, is a simple and compact creation. It looks like a small bar and can be made with different colored plastic reels.
The PadFoot can hold your iPad at a 12-degree angle in the landscape or portrait mode. Different iPad models have different thicknesses. Hence, a PadFoot can be made for each specific model.
A PadFoot can be placed on any flat surface and it will hold the iPad in such a way that using the touch screen or pushing any of the control/power buttons on the iPad is easy and convenient.
8. USB Cable Organizer
Let’s face it, we all have plenty of USB cables. More gadgets mean more USB cables. Nowadays, phone chargers also have USB cables. Take into account other devices like keyboard, mice, speakers, or anything else. USB cables are ubiquitous and here to stay.
Too many cables can make things messy. They tend to get entangled and create clutter. You can use a 3D printer and create a USB cable organizer cum holder. It will nicely organize all your different cables so that you know exactly which one connects to a particular device. No need to sort through all the knots and tangles.
This USB cable organizer is extremely portable and can fit nicely onto the edge of a table. You can create different colored organizers as well.
9. Phone Holder
If you want a simple yet elegant phone holder, then this one is an absolute treat. You can come home and place your phone on this holder. It will hold your phone vertically at a certain angle.
You can create different sizes or shapes and can even carry this holder in your backpack. Whether you are at home or in a hotel, your phone can look stylish with this creatively designed phone holder.
10. Pencil Holder
Do you use a lot of colored or black pencils? Even if you don’t, you can now place them on this amazing pencil holder. It will create a sculpture which adds aesthetic value to any setting.
This holder can hold 36 pencils. The pencil size has to be 7mm. Interestingly, these pencil holders sell for over $5 in the market. If you can get colored pencils and assemble them in a way that color frequencies are distributed, then your collection will almost look like a rainbow.
This pencil holder has got to be one of the simplest yet smartly designed pieces of 3D printing.
11. Door Holder
Keeping with the holders theme, another cool 3D printing product that we came across is the door holder. This piece of equipment is very handy indeed. How many times have you had a situation where your hands are either too messy to touch the doorknob or full with plenty of stuff. In such cases, you either end up kicking the door or using your shoulder to push open the door.
Now, you can attach your very own door holder and then simply push the door back all the way to the holder as you go out. The holder will keep the door from shutting and you will have barrier-free access. Not only can you make a 3D printed product, but the product actually has a high utility value.
12. Zip Ties
Zip ties are a lifesaver for the average person as well as for engineers. Zip ties not only hold cables together but they can also be used as many other things. They can be used to pack something, to lock a suitcase, or to fasten something.
You can create your own zip ties from scrap pieces of filament. You can print not only the body of the tie but also the locking clips that will fasten the ties. Given that one can get such high utility from scrap raw material, the zip ties are the smartest 3D printed product on this list.
If you wish to use multiple zip ties for different purposes and want to color-code them, then you can create sets of zip ties with different colored scrap filaments. You can basically turn even more scrap into something useful.
13. iVictrola Gramophone
Music lovers will find the iVictrola Gramophone a classic treat. It fuses the old with the new by providing a model of the classic gramophone which can mount the modern smartphone on it.
The iVictrola Gramophone is actually a sound amplifier for the iPhone 4 and 4s. This product is actually made up of two components which are all sold separately. First is the base and the second is the horn.
Everything is 3D printed and it will wow your friends and family members. Enjoy old and new tunes on this classic 3D printed gramophone.
14. Table coasters
Do you want your coasters to look stylish? Hand your friends or business visitors a glass of water when they visit you and place some of these intricately designed yet colorful coasters on the table.
These coasters not only trap drips and splashes of water under the glass, but also add aesthetic value to your tabletop. You can even customize the design inside the coasters to give them the look and feel that you want to. These designs can be controlled using the infill settings in the slicer program.
You can also make these coasters in any color that you want. Making simple yet useful 3D printed products is what 3D printing is all about.
