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Paramaterized triangular truss for climbing plants (or other interesting uses) — image 1
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Paramaterized triangular truss for climbing plants (or other interesting uses)

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Generates a reasonably optimal truss from flat pieces that print relatively quickly and assemble with M3 screws

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I've got a patio and my best-friend-besides-my-spouse likes to plant things in it and, because I've got a 3D printer, this has led me to use my printer to make fun things.  In this case, a trellis for plants.

My goal for my patio garden is that I want it to look like the sort of set dressing you'd see in Star Trek.  Not necessarily all of the way with federation logos, it's just that I could use green filament and print things with a more dainty sort of look, but I'm printing it with white filament and using trusswork and that makes me happy.

I've been working on a bunch of trusswork designs and this is only one of them but it's got a very interesting tweak: You can print it with flat panels, which means that you will need to attend to the printer more frequently, but the actual pieces print fairly fast, plus the strong axis is oriented in the most useful direction.  So this, you print by screwing it together with M3 screws and nuts (generally an M3x10 or M3x12, depending on if you are using the bracket layer or not)  Each level is made from three of the flat pieces.  If you want to reinforce it you can add a bracket, and if you want to shove it into the dirt, you want the base with spikes.

This is sturdier than some of the stuff that I'd tried to use on here from last year.  Trusses are great.

I'll probably do an updated version of the feet sometime between now and next spring.  This works pretty well as a cage for climbing plants but the anchor spikes are not quite good enough to properly handle the dangerous intensity of tomato plants.  I'm not sure why we plant such dangerous plants that require strong cages in our gardens but it does make me happy every time I eat a tomato because every time I eat one, it reminds me that I'm killing a dangerous predator.

Likewise, I made it for climbing plants in my garden, but there's absolutely no reason why you cannot use it for all sorts of other things!  It's a sturdy lightweight truss, after all.

Library requirements

I posted the OpenSCAD file as well as a mesh, if you want to use the OpenSCAD version, you need to install the BOSL2 library.  You can use the arrangement drop-down to pick which piece you want to look at.

Printing settings

I printed mine with white PETG and hit it with some white spray paint and it seems to last just fine out in the sun.  PLA might be different, never tried it.  And you should be able to print this with a fairly fat nozzle if you are OK with it looking a little layer-line-esque up close.

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