Clip-on coasters with easy & fast silicone feet

We made some clip-on glass distinguishers. Three designs in total:

• One with additional clip-on carpet feet
• One vase mode print
• One without the most important feature: silicon feet

The silicone feet are made from silicon rope that comes in various sizes. You can check out this video where we also feature the prints and the technique (@2:20):

How to implement them in your own design (example for 6mm rope):

• Generate a plane 1mm above the bottom of the print
• Project the bottom surface onto a sketch on the plane
• Offset inwards by 5mm
• Create a 6mm pipe along the path
• Cut it out of your design

If you would like to make them look more professional you can bend the ends of the channel upwards so the ends of the rope will be hidden. 

The rope comes in sizes ranging from 2 to 12 mm (and probably even more) and different colors, so you should be able to find something suitable for however big your print is. You can also use silicone O-rings. For the thin rope like in the clips a simple slot is sufficient, but the bigger rope looks way nicer with a circular channel. Just like in the described example the rope should be inside the print approximately ⅔ so it holds properly.

Pulling the rope helps during the insertion. I usually cut them after pressing in most of it, but if you pulled it before massage the silicone around because it might shrink again and turn out too short.

One more thing to note about the flower clip: It is printed in vase mode, but the features that hold the rope need some conventional printing. I “hacked” the slicer to switch to vase mode after the bottom part by increasing the amount of bottom layers so the entire structure was only bottom layers of the vase.

Filament: Verbatim PET-G

0.6mm nozzle

@0.3mm height for colored prints

@1mm width & 0.3mm height for translucent print

Print-quality was worse than usual because the fan shroud was missing (but that's a story for another post…)

Glasses: Riedel Big O 0414/67