Model originally uploaded to Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6072697.
I recently found the guitar amp-styled key holders here on the platform, which I really like, but I wanted something closer to a fifties or sixties style radio receiver - the ones with bakelite housings in gaudy pastel colours.
I also did not want to break out the paint brush and I found that while I love the idea of using jack plug connectors to "park" your keys, I did not really want one of these heavy plugs attached to my key rings.
So I designed my own key holder, faking the jack plugs, but adding a little bit of LED illumination along the way.
The knob in the center acts as a switch and dimmer for a piece of orange LED strip that gives you that glow effect like the old amplifier tubes did. A tiny PWM dimmer module is mounted behind the front plate and takes care of the electronics.
I attached the .scad file in case you want to play around with it. I tried my best to add comments in the file so it becomes readable. For me it was a nice exercise for knurling effects and patterns (like the grate).
Find all parts in one big .stl file or the complete collection of parts in a zip archive. The one big .stl file can be loaded into your slicer. You can tell the slicer to split it into objects and you will get:
- the housing (print in a nice pastel colour)
- the front grate (I used a bronze-colored filament)
- the front plate (carrying the plugs and the dimmer knob)
- four fake jack plugs (use silver or chrome coloured filament)
- the dimmer knub (also silver or chrome)
The parts have a loose fit and require a few drops of glue on assembly. I hope you like my design. Leave a comment if you like.
Edit 11-07-23: The dimmer module is this type here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002997950962.html It is available from multiple vendors on aliexpress. You have to unsolder the potentiometer so everything fits. Top tip: don't use the heat gun, I totally killed one potentiometer that way. The LED strip is this type: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003261847599.html It is very thin (4mm) and fits nicely. Of course you only need a short piece of it.