Spring Generator [ Serpentine / Zig-Zag / Sinuous / Wave ]

Spring Generator

[ Serpentine / Zig-Zag / Sinuous Spring / Wave ]

Generate serpentine spring meshes to splice into models, perform tests or print as fidget widgets and whatever else you have in mind. There are numerous parameters to adjust to your liking.

About

While this type of spring is typically used in furniture/upholstery, applications to be tensioned and support weight acting normally, preventing sag. This general shape can be very useful in other ways. While it won't match the properties of a typical coil spring, the profile has a lot of potential in the 3D printing context.

One example that inspired this script is this Battery Holder by YXC. Really great work and cool design.

Latest Update - 15th June '23

Fairly confident I've got angles and "roundness" factor working reliably now. Still think this should just be Beziers or some other point to point thing. We could see later.

To-Do:

• Endless refactor of sloppy code.
• Parameterized tolerance/clearance.
• Provide deeper options, specific dimensions for various terminal shapes.
• Better assertions/tests to flag where use parameters will result in bad geometry (overlaps/not-manifold and so on).
• Provide more variations of form.
• Continuous terminal positioning, rather than binary outer/center offset. Over-draw and then intersect with hull of desired length, offset appropriately?