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Show HN: PLAttice, for assembling structures much larger than the 3D printer bed
's an assembled lattice, built entirely out of 3D printed parts made from PLA. The name could also be short for Plastic Lattice, I suppose.
The struts are far and away the weakest member, failing in compression long before the joints or nodes give out; a reasonable iteration would relax the PLA-only requirement and use a different material (like bamboo dowels) for these elements, or at least beef up their width a bit. I bought the lovely cyanotype shade seen here from Sri Thumati at the 2025 Somerville Open Studios art walk; her work is really the star of the show, with the organic silhouettes of inverted oak leaves creating dramatic contrast against the regular spacing of the PLAttice struts. Given the long cantilever, I advise waiting to build anything similar until mine has survived for at least a few months; we know PLA moves a bit when it is left under strain, and the direct sunlight through non-UV-treated windows certainly won't help either.
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