Origin:
I wanted to design something small but nice which I could include as a free item with orders, or hand out to people instead of business cards. In case I haven’t mentioned it elsewhere, Wobbles is my shop’s mascot. He is a mechanical chameleon who enjoys pretending to be gears and such. He is a hugely positive little guy, and has encouraged me greatly through the past year or so. As such, I felt compelled to feature him in my logo.
Design Process:
I used existing design assets from my work designing my logo to establish the shape of the keychain. I chose a size of about 40 mm diameter. I wanted Wobbles on one side and my shop’s name on the other, along with a QR code which links to my website.
3D printing isn’t the greatest method of rendering text, or QR codes, for that matter. Someday I would like to be able to laser engrave the graphics on these, but for now this works. I am using my G10 build plate for these, which leaves a shiny surface on the print.
This keychain is designed in two halves which print separately. For the rear side containing the text and QR code, I used a 0.2 mm nozzle for higher detail (the QR code needs to have a certain level of detail, or it won’t scan correctly).
For the half with Wobbles on it, I actually wanted chunkier, thicker lines. When I was prototyping the logo badge on the Engineer’s Clamp Hammer, I tried a bunch of different print settings, patterns, nozzle sizes, etc. In my opinion, the logo looks better when rendered in thicker lines. This partially has to do with the filament I am using, as it includes a bit of metallic flake.
The thicker lines seem to display the metallic flake better, causing Wobbles to shine in a way I really enjoy. I decided on using a 0.4 mm nozzle and manually oversizing the line width to about 0.7 mm on the copper colored part.
I sourced some brass-colored keychain rings, and added a cutout to fit them on the back of each keychain half. I put holes on the back of one half, and little pegs on the back of the other, with a miniscule annular ring on them so they would snap in and fit very tightly once the two halves were smushed together. I also glued them using a tiny bit of strong glue, for good measure.
Side Note: I had the idea of possibly including an NFC tag inside the keychain, and making it do something clever, like maybe pre-program it with a coupon code for my shop. I also think I might make some fridge magnets using nearly the same design.
Testing:
I now have one of these on my keychain, and I intend to keep it there for a while (who am I kidding, it’s never coming off of there) to make sure nothing goes wrong with it during normal use, but I don’t foresee a free keychain causing any catastrophic issues, so I think we are okay to start distributing these. I also had a loved one test the QR code to make sure it scans correctly on different devices, and it works on both iPhone and Android.
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