iRuler customizable ruler

thingiverse

Did you ever have an acute need for a custom ruler that is exactly two centimeters long? Or does everyone keep on stealing your rulers because there is no permanent way to tag them? This customizable iRuler with will solve all your problems! This is a remix of stu121's customizable ruler. It has a refined design, more customizable options, is also available in inches, and the subdivision lines are now recessed, which makes them more printable on an average FDM printer. You can either have the text and numbers embossed or recessed by using a positive, respectively negative height. A height of 0 will omit text or numbers. You can even have the text cut all the way through, but this will leave you with loose bits for letters like ‘o’ and ‘B’. You can also choose to have a hole, and to flip the design around so the ruler lines are at the top instead of the bottom. You cannot enter non-ASCII characters directly in the text field due to an OpenSCAD limitation. You will need to look up the Unicode numbers and enter them as explained in the OpenSCAD manual. For instance, enter ‘\u00E9’ for a letter ‘é’. If you choose the subdivision lines too narrow, they will fuse together and become invisible. You can do some test prints with the ruler set to 1 cm or 1 inch to find a good setting, but the default should be OK for most printers. If accuracy is important, you must consider the fact that most plastics will shrink when cooling down after printing. For ABS this can be very significant. To get a perfectly accurate ruler, you should first print a test piece with the exact same settings as you want to use for the ruler. Next, measure how much shorter it is than expected. It is better to rely on two known points inside the test object, than to measure its outside dimensions. I have provided two test pieces that have notches 20 cm or 15 cm apart (7.874 or 5.906 inches). Calculate the compensation scale factor as the expected length divided by the measured length. Print Settings Printer: FlashForge Creator Pro Rafts: No Supports: Doesn't Matter Resolution: 0.1 mm Infill: 20% Notes: A layer height of 0.1 is recommended for the details to be well-printed. If you can, set perimeter width as narrow as possible (i.e. 0.4 for a 0.4 mm nozzle). The photos show prototypes that are somewhat different from the final model. Updates 2017/04/21 Added inches option which has subdivisions down to 1/16th.