3D Design and Printing
When the part I need does not exist, I design it in OpenSCAD and print it.
Overview
My other projects keep producing the same problem: a part that needs to exist and does not. The climate system needed a way to give a single-hose portable AC a second hose. The sensor nodes needed enclosures. The cameras needed housings. Nobody sells any of that, so I design the parts myself in OpenSCAD and print them on a Bambu Lab A1. This is the fabrication layer the rest of the portfolio quietly depends on.
Modelling in code
I do the design work in OpenSCAD, which is CAD as code: the model is a script, and every dimension is a variable rather than a number baked into a mesh. That matters because nearly everything I print has to mate with an object that already exists, and a first test fit is rarely perfect. With a parametric model, a slightly tight bore or a lid that will not clip on is a variable change and a re-render, not a redraw, and a part can be resized for a different job by changing its inputs. The model being plain text also means it diffs and versions like any other code I write.
The plenum
The part I would show first is the dual-hose plenum from the climate project. A single-hose portable AC cools its condenser with air taken from the room and dumps that air outside, which leaves the room at negative pressure, so warm air gets pulled straight back in through every gap and the unit ends up fighting itself. The fix is a second hose feeding the condenser with outside air instead, and the plenum is the piece that makes that conversion possible on a unit that was never designed for it. It has to seal against that specific unit, route two hoses, and do all of it without leaking conditioned air, on a machine that runs hot and moves a lot of air. Tolerances, heat and airflow all matter at once, which is exactly the kind of part this workflow exists for.
Everything else it feeds
The rest of the queue is mostly enclosures: housings for the sensor nodes in the climate system, camera housings, and other purpose-built parts as projects demand them. These look simpler than the plenum but carry the same constraint, because each one has to fit hardware I did not design, so tolerances decide whether the part works or goes back in the bin. The work is ongoing by nature. Every new electronics or systems project tends to arrive with at least one part that does not exist yet, and this is where it gets made.
The hardest problem
The plenum, without question. Parts that live on their own are forgiving, but the plenum has to mate with a specific AC unit I did not design and cannot modify. It has to seal against the unit well enough that conditioned air does not leak back out, and it has to route two hoses at once, since the whole point is converting a single-hose machine to dual-hose operation. Tolerances, heat and airflow all matter simultaneously: too loose and it leaks, which defeats the purpose, too tight and it will not go on at all, and the finished part sits on a machine that runs hot and moves a lot of air. Keeping the model parametric in OpenSCAD is what made that kind of part practical to iterate on. When a fit was off, the correction was a variable change and a re-render rather than a redesign.
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Everything on this page was designed, built and hosted by one person. Tell me what you need and I reply with scope, cost and timeline, usually within two working days.