Triangle grids are pretty unusual, but occasionally it's useful to have one for your design background. This tool lets you set up the size and even shape of the triangles of your grid, and mark out all the intersections with short lines indicating all the actual lines. For some layout purposes this is all you need, or else you can lay out the edges of your grid and use a straightedge (or the edge of the template) to draw the full grid.
The .f3d model lets you set the following parameters in Fusion 360:
- the number of triangular cells in the grid on your template: horizontalGridTriangleBases is the number of triangles bases along a row, while verticalGridTriangles defines the number of rows
- the baseLength of the triangles. If you are using the default settings for normal equilateral triangles, this is the length of all the sides.
- the width of the opening for your pencil (pencilTrackWidth) - but see below for notes on calibrating this.
If you want to get fancy and use non-equilateral triangles, it's a little complicated.
- the height of the triangles is expressed by two numbers, both of which are multiplied by the baseLength to determine the height. This means that
- Equilateral triangles have a heightFactor of sqrt(3)/2 and a heightMultiple of 1.
- If you want isosceles triangles of different heights, you can just change the heightMultiple. heightMultiple 2 will give you double the height of an equilateral triangle.
- The firstAngle is the angle at the bottom left of the bottom left triangle. By default it is calculated as atan(height/(baseLength/2)), for isosceles triangles, but you can also set it to any reasonable angle, EXCEPT 90 degrees, for some reason. However:
- If you want to make a grid of squares with the size baseLength, divided into triangles, set both heightFactor and heightMultiple to 1, and firstAngle to 45 deg.
in addition, if you wish you can set:
- the total thickness of the template (templateThickness). Default 1mm; as little as .4mm is possible I think, or up to 2mm or so for a sturdier tool
- the length of the arms of the crosses, expressed as a fraction of the grid pitch (crossSize). Default is 0.4 (so the crosses are 2mm long if you have a 5mm pitch). Going above 0.5 probably gets you into trouble.
- the margins around the edge of the template, expressed as a multiple of the grid pitch. Default is 2, so there is a 10mm margin (from from the center of the outside crosses) to the edge of the template (marginMultiple). This is just to make it less breakable, and you can probably go to 1 or less without any difficulty. Or you can make much bigger margins and, for example, add holes for putting it in a ring binder.
Pencil opening CALIBRATION:
You will need to calibrate your print to make the pencil openings the right size. I found that when I set the pencilTrackWidth to 0.5mm for my 0.5mm mechanical pencil, the slicer made a much bigger opening, so it was necessary to adjust XY Size Calibration (in PrusaSlicer, Print Settings>Advanced>Slicing>XY Size Calibration. For some reason, this one wanted +0.1mm (while the rectangular template worked better with +0.2). This is the default setting used in the gcode given.
If you want to set this for a 0.5mm pencil lead, try the gcode or the STL test files for a 1x1 square grid, and see how well it works for your pencil, then adjust from there. If you want to set it up for a larger or smaller pencil, edit the parameters in the Fusion file and go from there. I still recommend printing a small one to experiment with the size of the openings.
***Hex and square/rectangle grid templates also available! See my other models.***
https://www.printables.com/model/892173-parametric-hex-grid-drawing-template
https://www.printables.com/model/885687-parametric-grid-drawing-template-rectangular