Parametric Plant Pot & Saucer — 9 styles, working drainage, air-pot mode, containers (OpenSCAD)

Description

One .scad file, endless pots.

This is a complete parametric pot system: dial in your diameters and height, pick a wall style, and print. Everything is designed for FDM — no supports, no post-processing, sensible wall thicknesses.

Pick a style: plain, fluted, faceted, reeded, soft (rounded facets), ringed (beehive), dimpled (golf ball), spiral, or crossed lattice. Add twist_angle for a spiral texture, or a curved/angular belly for urn and gem-cut silhouettes. The saucer matches the pot's style and taper automatically (or set it plain for contrast).

Drainage that actually works. Most printed pots have holes that do nothing the moment you set the pot on a flat surface. Here the floor is raised on a rib network: water drains through the base holes into channels underneath and out through arches in the wall — each outer hole gets its own channel. The matching saucer holds the pot above the collected water on standoffs, with locator arcs that keep it centred.

Or make it a container. Switch the drainage off and it's a watertight cachepot, desk tidy, vase, or storage jar. Several of the included STLs are exactly that.

Air-pot mode adds air-pruning holes that follow the flute valleys (where the wall is thinnest) — great for propagation and root health.

Extras: soil fill-line, hanging tabs, plant-label slot, rounded rim, elephant's-foot chamfer, draft-mode preview, and a Customizer preset file with 14 ready-made designs.

Included STLs

Pots (drainage): Plain 120 (no texture — just a good simple pot), Classic Fluted 120, Beehive Urn 140, Gem-Cut Twisted 120, Spiral 120, Crossed Lattice 120, Air-Pot Propagator 100, Hanging Fluted 120, Mini Test Pot 80 (print this first — it's quick and verifies your settings).

Containers (no holes): Soft Twist Cachepot 110, Dimpled Desk Container 90.

Saucers: Fluted 120, Plain 120, Beehive 140.

Print settings

No supports. Print upright as modelled. 3 perimeters, 15 % infill, any layer height 0.15–0.3 mm.

PLA is fine indoors; PETG/ASA for outdoors or constant damp. PETG-GF looks amazing on the textured styles (hardened nozzle!).

Don't scale the STLs — wall thickness and holes scale with them. Open the .scad, change the sizes at the top of the file, and regenerate — OpenSCAD is free. The source ZIP contains the .scad, a preset file with all 14 ready-made designs, and a README.

Customizing

The easiest way — nothing to install: use the online customizer on this model's MakerWorld page — pick sizes and style in the browser, download the STL: https://makerworld.com/en/models/3016315-parametric-plant-pot-saucer-9-styles

The simple way: open plant_pot.scad in any text editor — every parameter is at the top with a plain-English comment (sizes, style, drainage, everything). Change the numbers, save, open in OpenSCAD, press F6, export your STL. That's genuinely all there is to it.

The GUI way: OpenSCAD's Customizer panel (normally already visible, right of the 3D view) gives you sliders for everything, and because plant_pot.json sits next to the .scad it's picked up automatically — all 14 ready-made designs appear in the preset dropdown at the top of the panel. (If the panel isn't visible: Window menu → untick Hide Customizer, or drag the right window edge open.) Tick draft for faster previews while exploring. The dimpled and crossed styles are heavy — preview may lag; render (F6) is always correct.

Either way, the console tells you about any automatic adjustments (hole sizes clamp to what fits, etc.).

Remixes are very welcome — the file is structured and commented with that in mind. If you make something with it, post a make; I'd love to see it.