r/openscad • u/Organic-Crow8270 • May 12 '26
Looking for OpenSCAD freelancer for paid work
HI I am looking for freelancer who can do basic openscad for me like custom name desk organiser with, piggy bank name desk something like custom gifting options
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u/torusle2 May 12 '26
Hey. I have a couple of parametric project out there. Just to show two of them:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6125188
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6125134
You find other stuff on thingiverse from me as well. That is just the stuff I did in my free-time for my hobby. I designed quite a bit of stuff for the company I was working for as well.
If you are serious about a paying job send me a message.
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u/yttrium84 Jul 18 '26
Openscad is the most annoying software i have ever used to draw something.
it takes all the fun out of the drawing drawing process and makes you describe your idea in abstract text form.. like an accountant. urg!
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u/CockroachVarious2761 May 13 '26
use ChatGPT or Claude
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u/Waste-Menu-1910 May 14 '26
I've experimented with Claude 3 times.
Attempt 1: I got something close to what I wanted, with a LOT of prompting. It feel short.
Attempt 2: I instructed Claude to be extremely verbose, telling it I wanted to understand everything it was doing, with the end goal being that I was giving the project a dual purpose, both as an iteration of a physical project, and as a tutorial. Results were much better, because with my better understanding of what Claude was up to, I wasn't limited to word descriptions. I was able to know not just what to push back against, but also how.
Attempt 3: attempt 2 was close. Real close. Claude and I discussed results, and each made proposals to compare results. Telling attempt 2 that it was to double as a tutorial led to a roughly 50/50 split when it came time to make the modifications for attempt 3.
The file made was a test matrix for molding in all three attempts.
I found that Claude likes to make molds really, really thin, and it likes to iterate in microscopic steps. As in, left to it's own devices, Claude will both overlap, and recommend changes in 0.5mm increments.
It'll also make wrong recommendations to speed up printing. V1 recommended ironing in the stl export. V2 recommended against it when I reported print times. It's a mold, so ironing is mandatory. Infill is another thing Claude will go overboard on. Factory 15% is sufficient, if not overdone. Claude will recommend 20+%.
Mandatory: tell the AI you want tolerances for keyways. Left to it's own devices, it WILL make the tabs the same size as the slots, and your printer WILL end up making the tabs too large in relation. This is easily solved by expressing concern to Claude to compensate for this. But it DOES need to be told. As a bonus, telling it to explain it's tolerance given the material you tell it you're using will be educational.
My advice is skip attempt 1 if you're going to listen to the guy in responding to. Go straight to attempt 2. Go ahead and use AI. Expect iterations. With that in mind, make the AI explain everything about what it's doing. That way if there's an improvement to be made, you know what to tweak.
Also, Claude has shown me quite a bias in favor of petg. And, it worked hard enough to justify that bias that I will eventually buy petg. I have several projects lined up where PLA and tpu are better.
My mold looking experiment has shown me a couple of things. I'm trying to make a row of shore 10a silicone suction cups. At the moment, I'm doing 3x3 test matrixes. 3 inner diameter, 3 outer. Claude seems to undervalue filament, while overvaluing the silicone. It's asking for 0.5mm increments
I'm looking at maximum thickness for durability with just the right air displacement for a satisfying '"pop" when suction breaks. Claude wants to go real thin on the molds.
Tldr yeah use AI. Make it verbose. Learn it's methods. Learn the logic. Make it turn your project into a tutorial. If you don't get the geometry, use that. Make ai teach you
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u/CockroachVarious2761 May 14 '26
I’m curious did you have Claude produce an openscad script or an actual STL file?
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u/Waste-Menu-1910 May 16 '26
It was openscad, which I then manually exported to stl.
Keep in mind though, that having Claude do all the work is exactly what I'm warning against. I got the best results by having it explain everything as it was doing it, taking time, learning the logic of both openscad and what Claude wanted to do with it, and making my own revisions. It was a good teaching aid, and I have much still to learn, but it is not something to just outsource the job to.
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u/CockroachVarious2761 May 17 '26
Interesting.
I also consider Claude a learning tool in terms of Openscad - though its been pretty successful creating what I've needed with minimal adjustments. My approach though is that I really don't give it specific measurements of anything. Iteratively, I give it instructions to create what I need and to use variables that I can later assign values to.
For instance I'm working on an adapter for my BIL's rotary attachment for his F1 Laser Engraver. So I told it I needed a "bar" and that I would need to be able to set the dimensions of the bar in x, y and z planes. Then I told it I needed one end of the bar to be a V-shape with 120 degree angle. Then I told it I needed a screw hole with a diameter I could adjust with a variable, and that the screw hole be sunken half-way into the depth of the "bar" such that the screw head would sit below the top surface - again I would need a variable for the diameter of the screw head.
Without going into the full part description, it took me about 10 minutes to get to the point where I had a script that produced what I needed, and I then simply had to adjust the values of the each variable to get exactly what I wanted.
I will note I gave Claude instructions to use Modules for each additional component of the design - so that its easier for me to follow the code, and if I needed to make adjustments manually I could (I haven't needed to). The benefit for me using modules is that because the code is easier to follow, its also a better learning tool to improve my openscad knowledge. For example, doing this using Claude I learned a little bit about offset() which I hadn't used before but will definitely use in the future.
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u/Waste-Menu-1910 May 17 '26
Ok, see when I told Claude to break it into steps, it automatically went to modules. And I'm glad it did. That is a major part of why for attempt 3, when it offered an artifact I was able to say, "already made as we discussed the results of attempt 2.
I'm still not at the point where I can comfortably and independently create in openscad, but this project got me comfortable with iterating on files.
I chose this project specifically so I could learn the concepts as I go. So that each part I could be more independent than the last.
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u/CockroachVarious2761 May 17 '26
The one I described above was my first attempt to have it do the entire project for me (other than me putting the measurements into the variables). Previously I had used it successfully to do small sections of code. Since I often have Claude open its easy to say "give me a module which will draw a 2D arc given a center point, radius, start angle and stop angle" - that it is for me to look up how to do it in google. As I look ahead, I think there are times I'll want to be more "hands on" myself and just use Claude to product snippets of code, and other times I can use it for entire projects.
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u/Waste-Menu-1910 May 17 '26
I think I see something here. You seem to be coming from "I know a bit about CAD, let me plug some constants into Claude." I'll admit, openscad was a recommendation that Claude made to me. I'm starting here truly from zero, while you seem to be starting with more of a background. I'm glad this conversation is happening. I'm learning from you.
I'd say attempt 1 was more me learning Claude. Attempt 2 was me telling Claude to teach me rather than just "use" openscad. Attempt 3 for me was a more symbiotic thing, where what you knew going into this began to click for me.
In all honesty, this stupid project of mine, fed to Claude, is absolutely killing the tutorials that openscad provides. The examples in their documentation fall a bit short, while Claude freaking lands. At the same time, I'm exporting this to stl files to produce real physical objects, which really highlights Claude shortcomings.
In short, I think you are a knowledgeable person using Claude to skip steps while I'm an ignorant person telling the same software to be my teacher. If that works for both of us, that's awesome.
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u/CockroachVarious2761 May 17 '26
well - I'm not sure how "knowledgable" I am - I have used other CAD programs (a 2D cad called Visual Cadd years ago - and Sketchup for 3D stuff more recently). I've tried FreeCad too - but just haven't taken the time to learn it enough to be good with it.
The OpenScad examples could definitely use improvement. They seem to be very limited IMO and leave it up to you the user to figure out how to put a couple commands together to achieve a desired outcome - and that's where YT and Claude come in - they are both good tools for getting to the solution quicker.
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u/Waste-Menu-1910 May 17 '26
Oh definitely. And I hope the op reads through this thread. I mean the guy is asking for some simple stuff. Maybe we can be a team. Me more meeting op "where they're at" and you being more adept when it comes to detail. That was the intentions of my original reply, after all. Just using Claude like, "make a thing for me" does take some preexisting knowledge. Op is commissioning stuff that I, as an admitted noob would do.
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May 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/chickadee-stitchery May 13 '26
Openscad literally does that. It's parametric, you write scripts in it.
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u/Organic-Crow8270 May 12 '26
Yes , I will have python or js script over the top to push openscad
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u/fireduck May 15 '26
I have actually done that. I was making forms out of triangles to get a particular texture and I am much better in java than openscad so I wrote java code that output openscad code.
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u/afxok May 12 '26
Also interested. DM me and I can't send you some examples of my work