On a recent trip I picked up a art-glass marble for my wife. She liked it so much she bought a nice lighted display stand for it. The stand wasn’t designed to display that particular marble though, so it didn’t work too well.

This was a problem easily solved with a bit of 3D printing. I figured it’d be trivial to make an adapter ring for the marble to sit securely on. However, when I examined the stand, I discovered the LEDs were flush with the base, and likely to get in the way. The marble needed to be held up above them. Before starting on the adapter, I did a simple model of the stand, so I could check everything cleared.

With the stand and LEDs modeled, I could verify my design properly fit. The project worked great, and fit perfectly with the first print. Success.

The next CAD project I did was a stand for a screwdriver set I purchased. I carefully measured the handle and the various blades, but (perhaps over-confident) didn’t bother to model them.

It wasn’t until I got the print back I discovered a major ergonomic fail: You can’t easily reach the handle because the blades are in the way! Had I taken the time to actually model the blades and handle, I would have visualized this immediately, and chosen another layout.

Moral – it’s a good idea to model the whole environment, not just the piece you’re printing.