1771 Keychain
A 3D-printed bag tag with FRC Team 1771 branding, designed in Onshape and printed on an Ender 3 Pro.
// Challenges
Standard print-prep work, bed leveling with paper drag, baby step Z to dial in nozzle height mid-print, and picking infill and wall settings that gave the tag enough strength without wasting filament. I also wanted the team number to read cleanly without supports.
// Skills Used
// Outcome
A clean 1771 keychain that has been riding on my backpack since the print came off the bed. 20 minutes of print time, 20% cubic infill, 210C nozzle, 50C bed, 0.2mm layer height, 0.8mm walls. Reads sharp at any angle.
Brief
A start-of-sophomore-year project. I wanted a 3D-printed keychain with my FRC team number, 1771, embossed on it, to clip to my backpack as the school year kicked off. The framing was simple. The point of the project was to turn 3D printing from a black box I asked someone else to do into a workflow I owned end to end.
Process
Onshape. Sketched the tag profile. Rounded rectangle with a hole for the clip. Extruded to 0.125 inches thick. Added the “1771” text as a feature embossed 0.04 inches into the front face so the number reads without needing print supports. Generated a dimensioned engineering drawing as documentation.
Cura. Imported the STL into UltiMaker Cura, set up for a Creality Ender 3 Pro with the 0.4 mm nozzle. Standard Quality 0.2 mm layer height, 0.8 mm walls (two perimeters), 20% cubic infill, PLA at 210 C nozzle and 50 C bed. Skirt for bed adhesion. Sliced into G-code. Cura estimated 20 minutes and 2 grams of filament.
Bed leveling. Preheated the bed to 50 C so the metal expands the way it will during the print. Disabled the steppers so I could move the nozzle by hand. Walked the nozzle to all four corners and the center. At each spot, slid a sheet of standard printer paper between the nozzle and the bed and adjusted the knob until I felt a slight drag on the paper. That drag is the standard for a properly leveled bed.
Baby step Z. The first layer was a hair too close on the first run. Instead of canceling and re-leveling, I tuned it during the print using the Baby Step Z option under the Tune menu. Small increments, maybe 0.05 mm at a time, until the first layer extruded cleanly without smearing.
The print itself. 20 minutes, clean off the bed. The “1771” embossed text reads sharp at any angle. PLA cooled cleanly with no warping or stringing.
The keychain has been on my backpack since.
Skills Built
- 3D printing as a workflow I own. Bed leveling, slicer settings, Baby Step Z. The whole pipeline from CAD to physical part is mine now, not something I ask someone else to do.
- Cura settings literacy. Layer height, walls, infill density and pattern, nozzle and bed temps, retraction. Every knob does something and I now know which to turn for which result.
- First-layer obsession. First layer is everything in 3D printing. Get it right and the rest of the print usually goes well. Get it wrong and nothing recovers.
- Designing for the printer. No supports needed because the embossing depth and orientation were chosen for printability. CAD with the manufacturing process in mind.
- Maintenance habits. Re-checking bed level every few prints, watching for tape wear, knowing when to retape the bed.
What I would do differently
I would print a small test square first to confirm flow rate and adhesion before sending the real geometry. Two extra minutes of test print would catch problems before the main run.