Balcony Garden: Self-watering flowerpots/planters for balcony railings (parametric)

Flowerpots/Planters to fit between the rails of our balcony railings. OpenSCAD file is included so you can easily make it fit yours!

There are two variants of the pot (measures in mm):

• a smaller one that fits between two rails: 120x110x110 (HxWxD), ~1.5l volume
• a bigger one that spans across three rails: 200x229.5x200 (HxWxD), ~9l volume
• ( rails are 8.5x40.5 (WxD) )

Every flowerpot/planter consists of 4 parts:

• the pot itself
• an inlay to create a water reservoir
• a floater to check the waterlevel
• 2 or 5 mounting brackets (depending on the pot size)

There are drain holes on each side of the pot so you can't overwater it and it won't get flooded when it rains.

Please leave a comment or a photo if you print it!

If you make another size please create a remix including the STLs.

Updates

• 01.04.2024: Added v4 of SCAD file. Small changes to v3 only, like bigger spacing between side-drain holes. Fix overlapping inlay with pot when rendering - also fixed for v3.
• 06.06.2021: Added tomato trellis clip for balcony railings.
• 30.04.2021: STL export from OpenSCAD now creates a clean mesh according to FreeCAD. Postfixed -v2 SCAD an STL files added. 3MF files are unchanged since Prusa Slic3r repaired the mesh and they printed fine.
• 01.01.2021: The walls of the mount are now fixed width. Before they scaled with the rail width which is a waste of plastic for wider rails. SCAD file updated with -v3. All other files are unchanged.

Customi(s/z)ing

Download and open flowerpot.scad. All the relevant variables are on top of the file. Measures are in mm.

You most likely need to edit 6 variables:

• big creates a small pot when false, a big one when true.
• pw,ph,pd width, height and depth of the flowerpot. Make the width 1 or 2mm smaller than the distance between the rails. Especially when making a big pot which adds an additional 1mm (variable rwg) for the middle rail so it won't get stuck.
• rw,rd width and depth of a single rail of your balcony railings. The measurements here should be quite accurate.

Mounting

You need one M3x20 (or longer) screw and one M3 hex nut per mounting bracket.

Place the mounting brackets onto the railings and secure each one with a screw. The pots have a hanger on each side, it should slide easily into the gap between the mounting bracket and the rails. Secure the big pots using all 5 mounting brackets - better safe than sorry!

Printing

All printed with PETG in 0.3 DRAFT settings. I printed the pots completely solid (no infill) - 4 bottom layers, 3 perimeters, outer perimeters first. They hold the water just fine.

3MF files are included with all the settings. You can take them as a reference in case the pots do not fit your railings - which is most likely. To print the small pot you need all files prefixed with small-, for the bigger one all files prefixed with big-.

There are also STL files included which you need to split up yourself using your slicer software.

When printing the big pot make sure your extruder cable bundle has not sagged! Mine did and ended the print ungracefully after ~30 hours. Consider using Extended Extruder Cable Clip by Asraff which fixed the issue for me.