Anyone whose primary computer is a laptop will understand the struggle of needing to plug and unplug cables every time you have to use it in another room or take it to work. It’s one of life’s little annoyances that you only seem to notice when you’re in a hurry, and inexplicably one of your cords has gone missing. Well a Minneapolis-based designer Dave Currie has had enough of what he admits is a minor annoyance, so he decided to 3D print himself a solution.
Currie came up with a simple mini dock that holds all the ends of his cords together so they act as a single piece, allowing him to plug in all of his MacBook cords at the same time. His first mini dock had space for two Thunderbolt connections, a USB connection and the Mac power connector.
It seems that working for a large creative design and prototyping company with access to design software and commercial 3D printers has its perks. The mini dock was designed and modelled in Rhino and then printed on a 3D Systems ProJet 3510 HD Plus 3D printer. The dock was printed in 3DS’ VisiJet Black, which is a highly durable plastic material that has properties similar to injection molded plastic.
According to Currie the finished dock works great, and he’s had quite a few requests from co-workers for their own versions. Someone suggested a smaller version for people who perhaps didn’t need to plug quite as many cords in, so he made a second version that had only a single Thunderbolt connection and the power cable.
While the mini docks are currently only for him and his co-workers, Currie did post a picture of his 3D printed mini dock on social media and content aggregator Reddit and said that he was flooded with requests for the STL files. He plans to release the files as soon as he has finalised the design and worked out any kinks, and if interest continues he may even attempt to turn it into a retail product.
