I 3D printed this!

Apparently, for some of my circle of friends, walking around with a naked (i.e. no casing) phone is portrayed as a risk taker, overconfidence, and even downright dangerous! To me, it's simply because I can't seem to find the casing that I want - which is just a simple clear case - not tinted, with no bumpers.

So I went around with a naked, slippery, sometimes too cold sometimes too hot iPhone in my pocket. The thought of it scratching did cross my mind, but doesn't bother me as much.

Then I remembered, we have a 3D printer in our office! Why not print my own casing instead?! That's an idea! So I went to thingiverse.com and scoured around for an iPhone casing. I was between two similar designs: and opted for the later because I like structured chaos more than complete structure.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:167177

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:319085

It took about 4 and a half hours to print, but the result was very exciting! The layers were smooth and structured, most of the circles came out alright. Only some of them had stringing and had a few later fell out because there were no support from the previous layers.

Here it is - it even has a circle for the Apple logo!

Looks pretty smooth, eh? 

I did went back home and filed them out with a nail-filer. I also filled the sides with some hot-glue gun - well the glue at least, not the gun. When the casing went on my phone, it wasn't a complete snug fit, so the dried glue kinda fills the gaps and keeps my phone from direct contact with the casing (you know, to avoid scratches).

So all-in-all, I'm pretty happy with it. My friends are very impressed - despite what I did was literally download the free file from thingiverse, ran it over Cura, transfered it to a memory card, stuck that into the 3D printer and press print.

Btw, we're looking to open up a MakerSpace here at my office, with one of the available service being 3D printing. Want to know more? Drop me a comment and let's talk!