Horizontal Card Badge - LA Dodgers

thingiverse

A friend at work asked for "something LA Dodgers" but I thought just printing the logo would be boring. Then he broke his card holder. I'd printed the badge holder previously and it was a little flimsy because the back is so thin. It's not really possible to thicken just the back, because then the clip is either too thick or off the build plate, and I'm allergic to supports. Adding the LA logo to the back makes it much less fiddly, and also kills two birds with one stone. Print Settings Printer: Folger Tech Kossel Rev B Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.2mm Infill: 100% Notes: Unless you need to use a raft due to perforated plate or shockingly un-level build plate, I would avoid it like the plague. The back of the holder is so thin that it will be hard to recover from the air gap and not be terrible. If you don't need the air gap because you are using soluble supports, you can clearly do anything you want because you have cheater plastic to magic all of the flaws away. Actual infill doesn't matter, just do 3 or 4 perimeters and it's solid. It's not that thick a piece. Original version of the badge required some scaling down, but I've already done that. If your printer isn't that far off (printing too large or small) it will hold a card. I wouldn't print this in PLA. Getting the card in requires quite a bit of flexing of the retaining tab, so more flexible plastic like ABS or PETG would be better. I use ABS and it's worked perfectly. Further, an ID badge is the sort of thing you might leave in your car by accident or design, and PLA deforms very quickly in summer car temperatures. It is entirely possible that the PLA will flex enough, as the back/tab is very thin and that makes it more flexible - I just wouldn't bother due to the many shortcomings of PLA for this purpose. Similarly I wouldn't do this in a truly flexible plastic like TPU or Ninjaflex or what have you. It's not needed, and could work against the purpose of the thing. Post-Printing The little flap that holds the card usually needs a little help opening up the first time. I use a very small blade screwdriver to wiggle it loose. If your printer isn't fantastic at bridging you will probably have some dangles. There is some play in the slot for the card, so you might try leaving them and test fit your card. If you clean them out, be gentle. How I Designed This Use 3D Builder, Smoosh Together I've tried modifying parts with Blender and Meshmixer before, but nothing has been as easy as the 3D Builder program. It's like using TinkerCAD but with STL files. I've been able to get Blender or Meshmixer to do what I wanted, while 3D Builder has been just as easy as TinkerCAD. I hate Windows 10, but I'm loving the 3D Builder. I scaled down the badge holder to make it "correct" as suggested by the original author. Then I scaled the logo keeping x and y (and z) locked to make it fit on the back of the holder, then when I got it all set and aligned how I wanted it, I unlocked the scaling and made the z match the height of the back of the holder. Finally I merged the parts and saved the STL.