dz0ny/printforge

Design 3D-printable parts by talking about them.
PrintForge is a Claude skill for designing holders, sleeves, mounts, brackets and
enclosures you can 3D print. Describe the part, or send a photo of the device it
has to hold. Claude writes a parametric smlibpy model, exports a STEP and a
print-ready STL, and renders labeled views of every side. Then you change it
the way you would with a friend at the workbench: "make the lip 8 mm",
"remove the lip from the top 6 cm", "optimize for a 0.4 nozzle".
Illustration generated from the real model. The renders below come straight from the CAD file.
The live configurator. Change the device, the shell follows.
## Why PrintForge exists
Asking an AI for an STL usually ends in a mesh you can't change and a
conversation where "the left side" means something different to each of you.
PrintForge fixes both. Every number in the part is one named parameter in a
small Python script, every side and feature has a name that shows up in the
renders, and every change is rebuilt and checked before you see it. You stay in
charge of the design, and you can rebuild it yourself with one command.
## Highlights
Plain-language changes to walls, lips, holes, vents, fillets and fits
Named sides and features (Left lip, Lip-free zone, Mount mark M1) shown as tags in every view
Labeled orthographic and isometric renders after every rebuild, so you inspect the part before you slice it
Printer-aware sizes: walls and plates are whole numbers of extrusion lines and layers for your nozzle and layer height
Print-ready STL in the print orientation, plus an editable STEP for Fusion, FreeCAD or Onshape
A Bambu Studio / OrcaSlicer 3MF with the recommended layer height, walls and infill already set, checked by slicing it headless
A live configurator: every setting a slider, grouped with icons, the device a translucent ghost inside the shell, rebuilt in seconds
A technical drawing from the model: one view per page, dimensions traced from the geometry and shown on hover, zoomable, downloadable as SVG
A checker that spots what a render hides: thin walls, knife edges, a part that runs into its device, a channel that got blocked, overhangs
Design rules in the model itself, so a value that cannot work says what to change and to what
Always uv and smlibpy, exact NURBS solids on the open-source SMLib kernel: no conda, no global installs, reproducible builds
The smlibpy MCP server: Claude tries each step in a live session, checks it with drawings, sections and highlighted selections, and you can orbit the part in a live 3D view
A growing list of smlibpy pitfalls the skill already knows how to avoid
## The configurator
Each project serves its own page, in the style of MakerWorld's Parametric
Model Maker but with the Python script as the source of truth:
Settings come straight from the script. A heading comment with an emoji is a group, the trailing comment is the description, a [min:max] makes a slider. Derived values stay hidden and recompute.
The device is a device() shape drawn as a ghost: the mixer on its feet, the gutter with its bead and hook, the downpipe. Click it and its sizes light up on the left.