Holes

The web app's Holes tab: where a hole snaps, every preset it cuts, and the print options.

The web app's Holes tab puts screw holes into a model. For custom Gridfinity storage, start from gridfinity/bin with filled on: a bin solid up to its stacking lip, whose flat top takes any cavity cut below — a tool's outline from rounded rectangles, magnet pockets, a 2020 socket. Start — in the picker that floats over the empty tab, the command palette's list (Esc puts it away, Cmd/Ctrl+K brings it back; a model file dropped on it or on the empty tab is imported) — from a catalogue part (its parameters stay editable under a toggle in the sidebar while you work), a mesh of your own (STL, STEP or 3MF), or the bench as it stands, then click a face: the hole snaps to that face's significant points — its center, the center of each quadrant, the center of any hole already through it, and a point set in from each corner (a plate with rounded corners gets its corner points where the sharp corners would be). Hovering a face also draws guide lines — its center and quarter lines, a radial from the center to each corner, and a circle of a radius you choose around the center: the crossings are snap points (a bolt circle of up to eight), and a click near a line or the circle lands on it, so a hole can go anywhere along the center line and still be exactly centered. The snapping bar in the viewer's bottom right corner turns snapping on and off (Snap) and sets the corner points' Inset and the circle's Radius (0 draws none); the palette's "Snap to the face's points and lines" toggles it too. Both start out set for the model. On Gridfinity parts the inset is each face's own, so the corner points sit on the magnet holes whichever face you pick: 7.75 mm on a bin's top, 4.8 mm on a foot's bottom, 8 mm on a baseplate's underside (and with a cell pitch set in Settings, wherever the holes then are); the circle starts at 14.5 mm, through the quadrant centers of a cell's top. The bar shows the inset of the face the guides are on. openGrid snaps and SOLDR module bases start with no corner points and their circle through the quadrant centers (8.75 mm on a snap, 10.2 mm on a SOLDR unit). A round part (a MagSafe mount, a post, a MultiConnect head) starts with its circle half way out to its rim. Anything else starts with its circle 6 mm inside its broadest face's narrower side, room for most holes (no circle on a face too small for that), and an inset of at most 5 mm. A value you type holds until you pick another model. Hold Option (or turn on Measure in the 3D view's toolbar, or press M) to see the pointed-at spot's distances to the face's edges and center, and the face's size; Shift-click places exactly where you click.

A system's spacing. While measuring, the selected hole can show a system's next holes: snap points one step away in every direction, with dashed lines to them and their distances. Click one to drill there; the new hole is selected, so the points move on with it and a pattern can be walked a hole at a time. Pick the system in the Spacing menu beside Measure in the 3D view's toolbar (it appears while Measure is on; on a phone the toolbar has no room for it, as for the Grid) or with "Measure spacing…" in the command palette. A hole placed from a system's preset picks its own when Measure is turned on with it selected, or when it is selected while Measure is on: a MOD-GRID hole MOD-GRID, a Skådis slot Skådis, a BitBeam pin hole BitBeam, the openConnect, MultiConnect and openGrid thread slots openGrid, the Multiboard threads Multiboard (25 mm), the pegboard holes US pegboard, the VESA screws VESA 100 (M4) or VESA 200 (M6), the MOLLE presets their panel, and the 6 × 2 mm disc magnet (the one Gridfinity bins take) Gridfinity. A spacing picked by hand stays until the selection or Measure changes. The spacings are the same as Repeat's standard spacings (below), from the same numbers: Gridfinity Holes (26 mm: a 42 mm cell's four magnet and screw holes, 8 mm in from its edges — the next cell's are 16 mm on), openGrid (28 mm), Skådis (40 mm along a row, rows 20 mm apart and staggered), Multiboard (25 mm), US pegboard (25.4 mm, an inch), MOD-GRID (8 mm), BitBeam (8 mm, a beam's unit), MOLLE rigid panel (50.8 mm), MOLLE slit panel (38.1 × 25.4 mm), and the VESA monitor-mount patterns 75, 100, 200 × 100 and 200 (mm; a Repeat grid of 2 × 2 on one is the mount's four screws). The steps run along the face's own directions, as the measurements do; points off the face or in a hole are left out.

On a touch screen there is no hover and no Option key: the first tap on a face shows its guide lines and snap points, and a tap on a face already showing them drills, landing on a snap point or guide within a fingertip's reach of it. The guides stay up after the hole is drilled, and tapping a hole shows its face's, so the next hole and a hole dragged by its handle have them to aim by; Measure shows the distances from the spot you tapped, or from the selected hole; turning Snap off in the snapping bar places freely; and pressing and holding a hole in the list adds it to the selection, as Shift-click does.

Each hole has a diameter, a depth (or goes right through) and a head pocket — counterbore, countersink (with its angle), or a hex pocket for a nut trap — from a preset or typed in. The presets cover the usual suspects, each drawn as a cross-section so you can see what it cuts: M2–M6 socket caps (ISO 4762), M3–M6 countersunk (ISO 10642), button heads (ISO 7380), heat-set insert bores, thread-forming core holes for a machine screw straight into plastic, nut traps (ISO 4032), wood screws and their pilots, a plain hole, a dowel, MagSafe charger and ring pockets, and a BitBeam / LEGO Technic pin hole — a beam's own hole (Ø4.8 with the groove a pin's tip clicks into, lib/pinhole.scad, checked against bitbeam-lib's beam), one beam (8 mm) deep with a groove at its bottom too, or through. Clearances are ISO 273 medium; treat every one as a starting point for your printer and measure the first print. The presets are grouped by kind under headings that open and close (closed but for the group of the preset in use, and remembered), with a search box over them that matches names and groups; the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K) finds them too — "m4 counter" and Enter — and so does its "Hole type…". A selected hole can be edited on its own, and whatever screw was picked or edited last is what the next holes get. Shift-click holes — in the list, or their rings in the scene — to select several: the editor then shows the values they share (the rest say "mixed" until you set them) and a change applies to all of them, a preset picked makes them all that kind, the quarter-turn buttons turn each slot from its own direction, and Delete removes them all. Shift-click on a bare face still places a hole exactly where you click.

Resizing and moving a hole. Select one hole and it gets handles in the viewer, as in TinkerCAD. A round or rectangular cutout — the Generic shapes and the presets that cut one (USB ports, memory cards, Skådis, MOLLE and MOD-GRID holes, disc-magnet and bearing pockets) — has small square handles: drag an edge to resize it, and the opposite edge stays where it is; drag a rectangle's corner to change its width and height together; hold Option (Alt) to resize from the centre instead. Click an edge's handle (or Tab to it and press Enter) to type the size in mm (a corner only drags); with a handle focused, the arrow keys grow or shrink it a Grid step at a time (0.1 mm with the Grid off; Shift: ten steps). Esc cancels a drag. A resized hole is also what the next click drills, as an edit in the sidebar is. Screws and connector slots keep their hardware's size; every hole, those too, has a round handle in its middle: drag it to move the hole across its face. With Snap on it catches on the face's snap points and guide lines as a click does, and on the face's center from further off (three times as far, up to a fifth of the face's narrower side), so a hole dragged near the middle lands exactly on it. Holes already on the face are not snapped to. The label by the hole says how far it has moved and, after a ·, what it snapped to: "12 mm right, 4 mm up · face center". Away from them it moves in whole Grid steps from where it was; Shift, or Snap off, takes it freely. A spot off the face says "Off the face", and the hole stays. A cutout may still hang over the face's edge to notch it — only its centre has to stay on the face. The arrow keys nudge the selected holes along their face by one Grid step (Shift: ten), and refuse, with a note, a step that would take one off it.

The Grid — in the viewer's toolbar (on a phone, in the command palette) and Settings → Editing, all one setting — is what those steps and sizes snap to, and where a click away from the snap points lands: 0.5 mm unless you change it (0.1 to 5 mm); Off places, drags and sizes exactly (an arrow key then nudges 0.5 mm).

Undo. Cmd+Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux) undoes any change — a hole drilled, resized, moved or deleted, a field typed (one step per field), a Repeat, a new model and "Pick another model" too — and Shift+Cmd+Z (Shift+Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+Y) redoes; so do the Undo and Redo buttons in the viewer's toolbar, which say what they would undo. After "Pick another model" the start picker offers Undo, and Cmd/Ctrl+Z works in its search straight away. The history keeps the last 100 steps and lasts until the page reloads, through switches to the other tabs. ? lists every shortcut. The model and its holes come back after a reload or a relaunch (the app keeps the workspace in this browser), but the undo history does not: the first undo after reopening stays within this session.

Repeat… turns the selected hole into a pattern of the same hole on its face: a row (count, spacing, across or up the face), a grid (holes and spacing both ways, every other row optionally staggered half a step, or set to a standard spacing — the systems Measure shows, above; Gridfinity's lays out a cell's 2 × 2 magnet or screw holes) or a circle (count and radius round the hole's spot, the hole itself moving onto the circle or staying in the middle). A row or a grid runs from the hole as its first corner, or, with Centre on this hole, lies round its spot instead: the hole stays put where a hole of the pattern lands on it (the middle of an odd row, or of an odd × odd grid) and otherwise moves to the first corner, so a 2 × 2 on a VESA spacing puts a mount's four screws round the point you clicked. The copies are previewed in green; any that would miss the face — past its edge, into another hole — are left out and counted, and afterwards the whole pattern is selected to edit or delete together.

A Skådis slot preset (a 5 × 15 mm pill, 0.2 mm wider so a printed one takes moulded hooks) with the grid's Skådis spacing (40 mm across, 20 mm up, staggered) turns any face into a Skådis board, for Skådis hooks or skadis/peg. A circle can be filled with the same spacing instead of a ring: every point of the pattern within its radius, centred on the selected slot.

The MOLLE presets do the same for MOLLE panels of any size or shape: a rigid panel's opening (38.6 × 25.9 mm, as molle/rigid_panel cuts it, so molle/insert fits) with the MOLLE rigid panel spacing (50.8 mm both ways), or a laser-cut panel's slit (30 × 5 mm, as molle/panel cuts it) with the MOLLE slit panel spacing (38.1 mm across, 25.4 mm up).

The MOD-GRID hole preset (a sharp 5 × 5 mm square, through, as modgrid/grid cuts it) with the grid's MOD-GRID spacing (8 mm both ways) turns a face into a MOD-GRID grid — a case's side or a lid — that MOD-GRID accessories and modgrid/connector's pin snap into; a 2x1 pin takes two neighbouring holes of a row or a column. The pin latches by springing its barbs out behind the hole's far edge, 3 mm down, so the preset only cuts through, and the face must be 3 mm thick where the holes go (2.9 to 3.1 mm seats firmly) with room behind it for the barbs. In a thicker wall they stay squeezed inside the hole and never latch; thin it first — from the inside, a rectangle pocket (Generic shapes) as deep as the wall minus 3 mm and a few millimetres larger than the grid each way, or set the part's own wall to 3 mm. A thinner face holds the accessory loosely. Repeat makes at most 100 holes at once (a 10 × 10 grid): repeat again from a hole on the edge for more. MOD-GRID is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, and a part with its holes cut in is an adaptation under those terms (README, "Licensing").

In the Library, modgrid/connector also offers two fit prototypes alongside the default compliant snap: a screw-expanded dowel, whose tapered bore is sized by screw_diameter, and a 4 mm BitBeam-inspired square fork pin. Try the dowel with a screw near the selected major diameter; the bore is configurable from 1.5 to 2.6 mm. These prototypes have not been validated across printers or screw types yet.

The Pegboard (US) presets cut a pegboard's round hole, through: 1/4" (for a 1/4" board) or 3/16" (for a 1/8" one), each 0.2 mm over so a hook's wire doesn't bind in a printed hole. Lay them out on the US pegboard spacing, an inch apart. The VESA presets are the socket cap holes for a monitor mount's screws, M4 for the 75 and 100 mm patterns and M6 for 200 mm, under a name that searching "vesa" finds; a 2 × 2 Repeat on a VESA spacing places all four.

Two tripod nut trap presets take a 1/4"-20 or 3/8"-16 hex nut (camera and tripod-head threads), so any part screws onto a tripod; camera/tripod_socket prints the thread instead.

Two more preset groups cut connector slots rather than screw holes, so any part becomes a custom mount for an openGrid board: an openConnect slot (the keyhole an opengrid/openconnect snap's head slides into — upstream's own geometry, with its lock nub on the left, right, both sides or neither, and its two clearances) and a MultiConnect slot (for an opengrid/multiconnect snap or any Multiboard connector: a channel of the length you choose — one openGrid cell, 28 mm, by default — running down from the round end the head rests in, with an on-ramp funnel at the entry and the v2 detent, each optional). For an item that hangs on several heads one above the other, tick "On-ramp every 28 mm" and make the channel a multiple of 28 mm: there is then a ramp one cell below every seat, so the item goes onto all its heads at once and slides down one cell. A slot has a direction on its face — the way the head travels to seat, "up" on the wall — which starts pointing straight up on a vertical face (the part's own Y on one lying flat) and turns in the sidebar; the viewer draws each slot's outline, entry and an arrow for it. The point you click is the openGrid cell centre for an openConnect slot (the head seats 3.6 mm up from it) and the round end for a MultiConnect one; an openConnect slot needs about 3 mm of material under the surface, a MultiConnect slot about 4.5 mm.

The openGrid thread presets cut the other half of openGrid's screw connectors: the 16 mm, 3 mm-pitch female thread of upstream's threaded snaps, so the openConnect and MultiConnect snaps' body: screw — the same head on a male thread instead of a snap — screws straight into the part. It has a direction too: the thread starts where it has to for a screwed-home head to point that way, so an openConnect head ends up with its slide direction up. "Full" is 8 mm deep for a full-size screw (6.8 mm of thread), "Lite" 4.5 mm for a lite one; depth, through and the clearance (upstream's 0.5 mm) are editable.

The Multiboard peg socket cuts an extruded octagon for the push-fit peg (14.5 mm across flats, 25 mm deep by default); clearance is adjustable for the printer. The Multiboard thread presets cut a Multiboard tile's two holes as the tile cuts them, so Multiboard's own bolts screw into the part: "Big" (Ø22.5 mm, 2.5 mm pitch) for a big-thread bolt, "Small" (Ø7.03 mm, 3 mm pitch) for a small-thread one. Both go through, since a bolt's thread runs on past a tile's 6.4 mm; depth and clearance are editable. The numbers are the community's measurements, not yet checked against a printed tile (Systems).

The Generic shapes cut a plain cutout of any size instead of a fastener's hole: a round one (a diameter and a depth, or through) and a rectangle (width, height, depth, and a corner radius — half the narrower side, or the "Pill" tick, makes it a pill with round ends). A rectangle has a direction like a slot: its height runs up the face unturned, and it turns in the sidebar. The USB ports presets are rounded-rectangle openings for USB-C, USB-A, Micro-USB, Mini-USB and USB-B, each the receptacle's metal shell plus 0.35 mm a side, for a port that sits at the opening. USB-C and USB-A also come as "room for the plug": wide enough for the plug's moulded grip at the spec's maximum, for a port set back behind a wall. The Memory cards presets are slots: through slots for an SD or microSD card in a case, and holder slots that stand an SD, miniSD, microSD, CompactFlash or CFexpress Type A / Type B (XQD) card on its short edge, half its length deep, for printing a card holder (Repeat a row of them). All of them are rectangles, so they turn, get a chamfer and take any other size like one. The KLIPPT presets cut a KLIPPT clip's own channel (lib/klippt.scad, from FH's clip, CC BY-SA 4.0), so the part slides onto a klippt/base the way a KLIPPT clip does: its lips, the gap the base's flange slides into and its lock are the clip's. Click where the seated base's centre goes; the arrow is the way it slides in. "Pocket" adds a drop-in pocket at the entry, for a channel in the middle of a face; "Run-out" leaves the entry open instead, with a lead-in of the length you choose, for one cut at an edge. A KLIPPT clip grips the base's neck by bending its lips, which a rigid part can't, so the channel is cut with a clearance (0.3mm a side by default) that moves each side out: the base then seats free, with a small bump at the entry to hold it in, and the lock still stops it. 0 cuts the clip exactly; 0.45 and up slides freely. references.yaml checks a base in it: free in the pocket, free seated at 0.3, gripped just as by the clip at 0.

The DeckMate preset cuts a DeckMate Innie's own socket (lib/deckmate.scad, from Mechanism's Innie, CC BY-NC 4.0) 3.25 mm into the part, so a DeckMate Outie (deckmate/outie, or one on an accessory) goes into the part the way it goes into an Innie, with no 2 mm plate standing proud of the face. Its lips, the undercut behind them and the ends of its walls are the Innie's; past the Innie's outline, a notch either side clears the ends of the Outie's rail, which on an Innie stand out in the air. Click where the Innie's centre goes; push the Outie in there and slide it 2 mm the way the arrow points to seat it. Seated in an Innie, the Outie's rail meets the plate with no room to spare, so a print a hair thick won't go all the way in: the floor is cut 0.3 mm deeper than the Innie's by default (Extra depth; 0 is the Innie exactly), the lips left as they are. It needs a face about 38 mm across and prints best on one that is up, as an Innie prints back down. references.yaml checks an Outie in it: in on the way down, and seated.

The Magnets & bearings presets are round pockets for 6×2, 8×3 and 10×3 mm disc magnets, a 25×4.5 mm pot magnet and a 608 bearing, each 0.2 mm over in diameter and depth. The pot magnet also comes with an M4 clearance hole through the pocket's floor, for the screw through its countersunk centre.

The MagSafe presets make any face hold a phone. MagSafe charger puck is a pocket Apple's MagSafe charger sits in flush (Ø56.3 × 5.5 mm: the 15 W puck's 55.92 × 5.29 mm, 0.4 mm over across so it lifts out again; the slimmer 25 W puck sits a little lower in it), with a channel for the cable, which leaves the puck's rim at its back: 5 mm wide, as deep as the pocket and running 30 mm past the rim, the way the arrow points — turn it towards the edge the cable should leave by, and check the width against your cable's strain relief. MagSafe metal ring (56 × 46 × 1 mm) and MagSafe ring sticker (55 × 45 × 0.55 mm) are grooves for the rings sold to make a case MagSafe-compatible, with the middle left standing; glue or press the ring in and a MagSafe phone or case holds on to the part. Each is 0.2 mm over across (the middle 0.2 under) and 0.2 mm deeper, as the magnet pockets are. The Insert menu switches a pocket between puck and ring, bringing that insert's usual size along; a ring's inner diameter of 0 cuts the whole disc, for a steel disc. Magnet rings come in the same outlines, 1.5 or 2.5 mm thick: set the depth to match. magsafe/mount is the same pocket on a round plate of its own.

Two print options go on the holes they make sense for. Chamfer (round, rectangle and 2020 cutouts) bevels the opening at 45°, as a lead-in and to absorb the flared first layers of a hole printed opening-down. Teardrop on walls (round and screw holes, and the 2020 socket's bolt hole) cuts a hole in a wall with a 45° point at its top, so it prints without the top sagging; a screw hole's counterbore goes teardrop with it and a nut trap stands on a corner. "Up" is the model's +Z, the way it prints, and a hole in a face lying flat stays round. Picking another preset keeps both.

The 2020 extrusion presets cut a socket that the end of a 20-series aluminium extrusion pushes into along the hole, so a length of rail stands in the part: the 20 mm square plus a clearance (0.15 mm a side), 15 mm deep by default, and — "Keyed" — a key into each of the rail's four slot mouths so it can't turn ("Plain" leaves the square bare). The keys are the end cap's, and references.yaml's extrusion2020/rail-in-holes-socket checks NopSCADlib's E2020t into it with no interference. Tick "M5 bolt hole" to also cut an M5 clearance hole (Ø5.5) from the socket's floor out through the far side, for a bolt into the rail's centre bore (tapped M5 on most 20-series profiles) that pulls it down onto the floor; a through socket has no floor, so it gets none. Click the rail's axis; depth, through, clearance and direction are editable.

Export the result as an STL, or as .scad — difference() { part; holes } over the same sources, so it keeps working with a native OpenSCAD. Print with EasyPrint… shares or saves the STL (or a 3MF) and opens Prusa's EasyPrint, to print it from a phone (Getting started).