3D Printed Card Holder

By Joseph Chan, Idea Lab Library Technician

As someone very prone to losing things the exact moment I put them down on my desk, I have a rule I follow for anything I really need to not lose: if it leaves my hand, it only goes in a specific spot I dedicated for it. My house keys go on the hook, my Presto goes to that one pocket in my wallet, and my laundry card goes in a card holder that hangs beside my keys.

As an adult, with things that come with Very Adult Consequences if I lose them, this rule has saved me more times than I will probably ever realize. I still have the same Presto card from 2011, and my stress at having to do laundry is reduced because my laundry card is always in a holder on a wristband, so I cannot lose it in my pocket or underneath some clothes.

Photo of a laundry card in a 3D printed card holder.

Above: my laundry card in the card holder.

As you may be able to tell, the card holder is 3D printed. I printed it right here at the Idea Lab. The design is free online, as many objects for 3D printing are. All I needed to do was download the file and prepare it for printing on one of our 3D printers. Just like with a paper printer, where you must choose the printer, set the number of copies, and decide whether to print in colour, 3D printing also requires you to configure specific printing parameters. Common settings to check are layer height (3D printers melt and extrude plastic in stacked horizontal layers, like a layered cake) and infill (how much of the inside of an object is filled in).

Screenshot of a card holder model in Prusa Slicer. The "Plater" view is shown with the basic settings viewable on the side.

This is Prusa Slicer, a program that takes digital 3D models and creates instruction code for 3D printers to print physical objects.

Here we see the card holder positioned in the centre of the bed for printing, and the various menus let us adjust settings before the program generates the code for our printer.

This may sound complicated, but the software is free, and there are tons of online resources that can help you.

The card holder is a relatively small object that isn’t super complex (basically a flat box with a slit), and the only thing I needed to make sure of was to add supports so that overhanging parts of the model printed out correctly. Without supports, then the extruded plastic from the printer would have sagged before it hardened (if you follow my cake analogy above, without “cake” to support it, layers on top will collapse).

If this all sounds abstract and confusing, don’t worry. The Idea Lab has an online tutorial on 3D printing, and runs monthly in-person workshops on 3D printing.

After "slicing", we get a preview of the process in Prusa Slicer. I have zoomed in on a tab that requires support material. The light green, and the forest green parts above it are the removable supports so that the orange layers on top print properly.

Note that all of the colours in the preview are a visual aid, the final colour of the printed object depends on what filament is loaded into the printer.

A view of the card holder in Prusa Slicer, after the model has been sliced for printing. The view is zoomed in to show the supports that have been added to the printing instructions for the printer.

Once you have your file prepped (aka sliced), it’s as easy as loading it into the printer, selecting your filament and waiting for the print to finish. This one took all of 35 minutes.

I hope this has inspired you to make your own. Sometimes the thought of making something yourself seems overwhelming until we see how it’s done. And sometimes it is a lot, but the journey of learning and the joy of making is worth it. And the Idea Lab is here to help!

Thanks for tuning in for this installment of Make It! @ the Idea Lab. Check back on our Instagram next month to see what we make next!

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