The MagPi - February 2020

five separate letters, because they are not joined
together. That wouldn’t make a very good keyring!

03

Join the letters together
Next, you will join the letters together so
that the keyring works as a single object.
Change your existing code so that it only creates
the letter ‘C’. Add a union block, from Set Ops,
to join shapes together. Start with the first two
letters: ‘C’ and ‘O’ (by creating a second 3D text
block and adding both to the union block).
Click Render and you’ll see that there is a
problem: the ‘C’ and the ‘O’ are in the same place.
You need to move the ‘O’ along the X axis so that it
comes after the ‘C’.
Add a translate block, from Transforms, and set
the value of X to 10 to move the ‘O’ 10 mm along
the X axis.
Now, the letters should be touching, but not on
top of each other.

04

Add the rest of the letters

Click the [+] button on the union block

to add a space for another block. Right-click on

the translate block and select Duplicate to create

a copy (of it and the 3D text block inside it).

Drag the copy into the union block and change

the ‘O’ to a ‘D’. Change the X value of the second

translate block to 20 so that the ‘D’ is in the right

place. Now, follow the same process to add an ‘E’

and an ‘R’ to finish the word ‘CODER’.

Make sure that all of the letters are touching,

and that there are no gaps between any of

the letters.

The BlocksCAD code joins

individual letters together to

create the CODER keyring

The preview window

displays how the finished

3D-printed object will look

Top Tip

Remove

filament

You might need

to remove some

small strands of

filament to tidy up

the print.

st two letters The fir

are now touching

TUTORIAL

3D-print a keyring with BlocksCAD magpi.cc 39