3 Ring Choir Binder Music Holder (remix)

thingiverse

I started out printing KrisFab's design, but I wanted to use large rubber bands to have elasticity to hold in the pieces of music. When I glued the pieces together, they snapped, so I tried printing them thicker, with similar results. I don't blame the design, I blame my printer's condition ;) But anyway, I needed to have something easier for my machine to print a bunch of for a choir. Print two endpieces and one (optional) midpiece, add long rubber bands and rods, and you're done. I can print 8 sets at once (16 endpieces and 8 mid-pieces) on my 200x200mm bed. It takes forever (like, 10 hours), but they came out nicely. I used 4mm rods for this design (approximately 10 inches long), with #117b rubber bands. I used bamboo skewers for the rods, but I may switch them for something with a bit more rigidity over time. Other than cutting the rods down to size, there isn't much post-printing that's needed to be done to be able to make use of this one. In reality, don't even worry about the diameter of the rods, as long as they fit -- the more important thing is that they're the right length (just about 10 inches), and they provide rigidity. 1/8" steel rods will probably do the trick just fine (I'm considering picking some up to test). Even if one is markedly shorter than the other (like, half an inch different), the holes in the endpieces are over an inch long, so one rod might rattle around, but it will keep the other basically aligned anyway. UPDATE: I made a smaller midpiece, as its purpose is mainly to just align the rods. I think it looks better, and it prints much faster now as well. Printed 16 of the midpieces standing up in a few hours. UPDATE 2: I made an endpiece that adds some rounding to the various holes and to the sides (...endpiece_chamfered_inner.stl). I've found that this one prints more nicely for me, as I tend to press down the plastic a bit too much on the build plate. I can get my putty knife under the side and pry these off a lot easier. Hope it helps others out there, too.