ecoiras shared this project on Thingiverse!
Here it is: a printable pin bed!
I wanted to do something like this for some time but it turned out to be quite tricky to get the design right for 3D printing. One key point is that the pins have to be printed standing up, which reduces their structural strength quite a lot. Printing the prints horizontally makes them much stronger (I tested it), but that means having to fill the bed one pin at a time, which will very quickly drive you mad (I tested it too).
To make the pins strong enough for actual use they have to be reasonably thick, which means the bed is “low resolution” (not many pixels per square inch). To compensate a bit for that I used hexagonal packing for the pins, which increases the density about 12% over a square grid pattern.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!