Polygon Columns with Holes and a Twist (Customizable) by FollyMaker

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a Customizer environment in which you can design an array of up to 10 columns to fit your vision.
You specify the location and parameters for each column. Each column is an extrusion of a basic regular polygon (triangle, square, pentagon, etc.) Create your object by specifying the X, Y location for the center of each column, the Z height of the column above the base, the size of the column (i.e. the diameter of the smallest circle that can enclose the column), and the twist (if any) for the column. In addition, each column can have a hole with the hole size, polygon shape and depth specified. You can specify the dimensions of the rectangular base supporting the columns (or, use zero base thickness for no base).
Columns can overlap. Holes can be larger than a column. Holes can be very shallow, or they can go through the entire column and base. Columns can be twisted or plain. If you want fewer than 10 columns or holes, specify zero diameter for each unwanted column/hole.
So, what might this make? I hope there are lots of possibilities. Pen holders? Nail polish holders? Stands for objects supported by a field of columns? Supports for motors, circuit boards, sensors, gears, art objects? . . .
A wide range of useful (and useless) objects can be created. I began this because I wanted a variety of bases for circuit boards and some storage racks for little jars of paint. My goal was to create a Customizer Thing with a reasonable range of flexibility. Obviously, that flexibility means you have to design and fill in the details -- in this case the parameters for each column in your creation. See the Customizer input panel for notes on the parameters. (Scroll down in Customizer to see all of them; there are a lot of parameters.) -- Enjoy.
[If your design needs exactly 4 columns located at the corners of a rectangle, you might try the more restricted version I developed before adding the options (and complexity) of this Thing. See: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1375390 ]
Thingiverse Customizer sometimes seems to refuse to run. (It probably takes a lot of computer resources to Customize files for everyone in the world.) A workaround is to download the OpenSCAD application and process the .scad file on your own machine. I have posted a brief guide. http://bit.ly/openscad-at-home