Ziptie Top Plate for Nimble Network Rack (CadQuery Customizable)

The Nimble project aims to create network systems that are offline and local first, can utilize the Internet when available, and can be set up anywhere. There is a web app to configure a 6-inch Nimble network rack here, and that is the base rack that I made this plate for. The 6-inch rack is nice and compact, but there is some hardware that is just a little too big to fit into one of the shelves. That hardware often fits fine on the top plate though. This ziptie plate gives me the flexibility to try different devices on top of the Nimble without spending the time to design a specific plate for each device.

Printables is no longer allowing me to upload Python files, so you can find the source code for this model here (right click and save-as is probably the easiest). That GitHub repository duplicates much of the information here on Printables.

Print Settings

These are the settings that I used, but many others should work as well. There is a little bit of bridging that happens over the ziptie slots, but it is not a long bridge (5mm).

• Layer Height: 0.2

• Brim: No

• Supports: No

• Material: PETG

Parameters

• ziptie_bar_thickness - This sets how tall the ziptie rails are. Setting this too high could block the ports on the device. Setting it too low may not leave enough thickness for the zipties.

• ziptie_width - Width of the ziptie slot. If the zipties you have are wider, you can adjust this to make them fit.

• ziptie_thickness - Thickness of the zip tie slot. If the zipties you have are thicker, you can adjust this to make them fit.

Customization

This model can be customized by opening the script in CQ-editor, the widely-used IDE for CadQuery. Change the parameters explained above and execute the script. You can un-comment the export line towards the bottom of the script to export your customized holder to STL.