Space-Saving MacBook Pro Stand

thingiverse

This compact stand lifts your laptop up and over your external keyboard, letting you use both in tight spaces. I'm printing this on a MakerBot Replicator 2X -- when printed on its side, the stand fits in the X and Y dimensions, but I've had to scale Z down, making the stand significantly narrower than my MacBook Pro, but it's still extremely stable. Print Settings Printer Brand: MakerBot Printer: MakerBot Replicator 2X Rafts: No Supports: No Infill: 20% Notes: Print this sideways (on its left or right edge) and scale to whatever width you'd like (you can print it up to 6.1" wide on a Makerbot 2) It's designed to require no support or raft when printing, and if you're printing on a Makerbot, you should also turn off a brim/skirt, as this pretty much fills the bed. How I Designed This I wanted a laptop stand that would allow me to use my noisy, awesome IBM Model M keyboard and my MacBook Pro while sitting at the breakfast bar of my kitchen, which is only about eighteen inches deep. To save space, the laptop had to be lifted up and over my keyboard. I started off by modifying yusufk's Angled MacBook Pro Stand, but the model got more and more faceted until I realized it would be simpler to redesign it. This design retains the angle and general shape of his stand, but has a smaller base, two vertical supports instead of just one, I kept the stand completely identical from layer to layer (left to right), letting you scale it to whatever width (Z dimension) your printer can accommodate without making it look weird. I also added a few design flairs! 123D Design makes it very easy to turn edges into curves using the filleting tool under "Modify" -- it's a bit addictive! You can even put curves on your curves, because...never mind. One trick I used to make it easy to experiment was to keep multiple copies of the model -- I kept saving version 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, 3b, etc. This let me come back to revisions where pieces were still movable and reposition, merge, and add curves in different ways.