synth-printer | 3D printed synth DIY panels with simple python code

synth-printer is a Python library. synth-printer has no bugs, it has no vulnerabilities, it has a Strong Copyleft License and it has low support. However synth-printer build file is not available. You can download it from GitHub.

Hey kid, wanna extrude a synth?. Synth Printer is a very very lightweight system letting you create faceplates for your DIY modular synthesizer, using simple Python code — code so simple you don't need to know any Python at all (a bit of experience with any programming language will be enough). You don't need to install a complex Python environment either. Try it out! In just a few minutes, you'll get a STL file ready to print, and your components will fit just right, without having to bust out the calipers. With live visualization as you edit the code, and realistic previews of the size of the elements, it's much less fiddly than using CAD software, and much easier to get clearances right. It's based on CadQuery, but provides a greatly simplified syntax focusing only on synth panels. It's meant to create panels that print right out of the box: they account for tolerances, and they provide footprints that match the kind of synth diy hardware you'll find in the wild. I've made a lot of panels using this system already. My goal is to make it so things will fit on your first attempt. It's very much for the sort of DIY builds that use prototype boards, or PCBs mounted perpendicularly and wired to the panel. For the sort of DIY builds with sandwiched PCBs mounted in parallel, there's no guarantee the footprints will fit. Due to its very limited audience, this system is very minimal, hacky, and rough around the edges. Still, it should be easy to learn how to get it going, and I'm happy to help if it gives you trouble. Synth Printer mostly focuses on my own needs: I build in the Kosmo format, which is bigger than Eurorack, so I tend to use bigger hardware options, such as big 6.3mm jacks. To get started, you need a way to use CadQuery. I strongly recommend you simply use a Cq-Editor binary release. It bundles all you need, there's nothing else to install. After that, download this repository, and load up one of the examples in that editor. Use the Render button (F5) to run the code. Rotate the viewport, as you'll be seeing the panel from the back by default. You can toggle the preview layer in the outliner to see the panel better. You can edit code right from CQ-Editor, but if you find it limiting, you can enable autoreload in the preferences, and edit the files from an external editor. You can design a panel simply by modifying an example, but take a look at synthprinter.py: the functions are full of useful comments, telling you which hardware they fit, and why some values were chosen. My goal is to provide default settings that fit in mosts cases. But if stuff won't fit, you can override any default setting in the constructor, the examples will show you how.