Summary

Various designs for 3D printed potentiometer knob caps.

These caps are all designed to fit on the 6mm rotary pots used on OVUM.

Fusion360 project file is included in case you want to tweak the size, depth, or clearances.

My design goals were:

1. Pleasing look and feel
2. Clearly readable orientation
3. Minimal materials usage
4. Fast printing

All of these designs print with the top of the knob on the build plate. If the model is named "VASE" then it's designed for vase-mode printing.

Hex knob

This knob is best printed at as high a resolution as possible (0.1mm layer height) OR alternatively using the fuzzy skin feature. Of the two in the photos, the smoother one is printed at 0.1mm layer height, and the fuzzy one is printed with 0.1 fuzzy skin thickness and 0.1 fuzzy skin point distance.

This didn't really succeed well at being clear to read the orientation, but I like the look and feel. It's not a super fast print (~25min) due to needing high resolution to avoid layer lines. I think the fuzzy skin version could be printed faster without showing it.

Vase cylinder knob

This is an experimental attempt at vase mode printing a knob cap. It works pretty well! It's stronger than it looks as a 3d model, and quite fast to print (12min at 0.12mm layer height). The look is a little blunt for my liking, but overall a solid first attempt!

Vase twist knob

This is an attempt to take the shape of the vase cylinder knob and make it more interesting. It's not really recommended you print this one - because there is MUCH less surface area gripping the shaft of the potentiometer, it doesn't work well dispute being designed with 0 clearance. It could be modified to add negative clearance, but since I don't love the design I didn't bother.

Octagon Iceberg Knob

An interesting shape. The angled surfaces leads to some obvious stepping along the sides - photo coming soon