3d Printers are great, but there is no denying that most people that own 3d printers print a large amount of items that serve no purpose other than being a decoration on a shelf. There is nothing wrong with this and I am “guilty” of doing the same. However, I really like to see how 3d printers are able to be used to solve and fix household problems and repairs like no other technology. If you do not already, I highly recommend following the subreddit for functional printing. This subreddit is full of posts dedicated to all of the useful functional things that people have used their 3d printers for.

Personally, most of my 3d prints have been little figures or printer upgrades with a few exceptions. One of the most useful things that I had created up until recently was a lock for the kitchen cabinet under the sink that housed all of the cleaning chemicals. I live with my best friend, his wife, and two kids. The two year old was found one morning playing with soap in the kitchen that he had found under the sink so I thought this would be a great time to use my 3d printer for something useful.

Originally, I opened up Fusion 360 after doing some measurements of the cabinet. I threw together a quick prototype and went to print. The first prototype was bad, not even close to what I had wanted. I then decided to go to Thingiverse, where I found this model:

Upon first print which took about twenty minutes the cabinet was more than secure enough to keep out the two year old. This lock has been used on and off for some months now without fail.

I was recently trying to clean and organize my desk and workspace when I noticed the amount of memory cards I had in random places. I found micro sd cards on my floor, sd cards on my dresser, and usb drives scattered as well. This I knew was terrible, since I use many of these cards for videos and photos when I am getting content for my channel and can’t search my whole room from top to bottom every time I needed to find one so I once again set out to Thingiverse where I found this:

Not only does this fill the needs of what I wanted, but you can edit it before downloading to suite your needs thanks to Thingiverse’s built in customize tool. This allows you to edit certain variables on it without having to download and edit in your own cad software. You can choose how many usb slots, sd slots, the spacing between them, if you want to add a pencil holder or a name tag, and even more!

For mine, I kept it fairly simple because I only required it to be used as a storage holder and did not see a need to make it larger. It printed out fairly quickly and now sits proudly on my desk. I am shocked that it took me this long of misplacing my storage devices to finally thanks to my 3d printer come up with a simple solution.

What is your most useful print to date? Share in the comments below!