5 Weirdly Useful Things You Can 3D Print

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3D printers are limited only by the creativity of their creators and by what can fit on the printing tray. And luckily, you don't need expensive printers, special filaments, or complex prints that take hours to create useful things. Beginner-friendly 3D printing projects include things that might take at most a couple of hours to print and that you could actually use daily, like a toothpaste squeezer or a laptop stand. We've taken a look at dozens of ingenious 3D printer projects that can upgrade your home or upgrade your garage. A lot of that stuff is obvious, though, so what about something a little bit weird ... but useful?

The following 3D printing projects are not the typical device accessories or replacement parts you'll see most often at the top of 3D print model shops, but all of them serve a niche purpose very well. Every single one is proof that, with a 3D printer and the will to do so, you can solve almost any material problem — and in some cases, probably create things that you couldn't buy anywhere else. Try these five projects with your 3D printer.

Cup holder accessories can help organize your car, but they can't change the laws of physics. That open drink may spill over the edge with a hard enough turn. To solve that problem, we recommend nitroturd7856's Gimbal Cup Holder. As the name implies, the gimbal cup holder puts the cup (the maker demonstrates it with drink cans) in a gimbaled enclosure so that gravity will (in theory) keep it level regardless of sharp turns, bumpy roads, humps, inclines, declines, you name it. It's a cool project, even putting aside its usefulness. It's designed for typical 12-ounce cans, with a 16-ounce can version for those taller, thicker cans. You may also wish to print the 12-ounce sleeve for those thin, tall cans.

Note that since the gimbal takes up quite a bit of space, this uses a cup holder-sized mount. The cup will stick up out of the cup holder, like those cup holder expanders that let you hold larger containers. If your car has a cup holder known for being too tight or too large, you should probably measure it and compare it to the base before printing it.

Another caveat: This project may introduce some complications. The creator notes that you have to be very gentle with post-print removal, or you could cause permanent structural damage. Assembling it could be a bit tricky and may require some simple tools. You should also use PETG, particularly if you're going to be drinking any hot drinks or leaving it in a hot car. Some commenters have also noted that their printer isn't tall enough to print the entire thing — so your mileage may vary.

On a hot summer day, you can see battery-powered fans everywhere. Thanks to climate change pushing the Atlantic Ocean toward a tipping point and causing record heat waves around the world, these are probably going to become less of a convenience and more of a necessity. Just one annoying problem: the batteries can run out pretty fast. Nothing is worse than grabbing your fan before going out and only discovering once it's stinking hot that it's dead. YG3D's Manual Fan is a truly ingenious use of a 3D printer to make a fan that is easy to print, will always work, and won't create any battery waste.

The fan features a squeeze lever to turn some gears and spin its fan blade. So instead of being limited by batteries, your only limitation is your hand getting tired or cramped. And since there's no battery involved, you can bring it on a plane. Truly a brilliant design all around.

Don't be discouraged by the seemingly complex design. At the end of the day, it's just an enclosure, three gears, a spring, and a fan. This is the final version after the creator iterated on previous ones that made a lot of noise and needed adhesive and lubricant to function — this version needs none of that. Make sure you use PETG since using PLA could cause the spring to fail earlier. Aside from needing no batteries, fixing this fan should be incredibly easy. The most likely part to break is the spring, so you could just print a new spring-lever combination, and the fan would work again like new.

Your partner stealing the blanket and cold feet aside, those issues pale in comparison to a bedsheet that always comes loose, no matter how you secure or tuck it. One of the best solutions is a set of Gorilla Grip sheet straps, but in my personal experience, these are incredibly annoying to attach every time you change the sheets. Instead, try the GripFix by Acki3DPrint.

This is a triangle-shaped holder with plastic teeth that you place underneath the mattress corner. Wrap the sheet around the GripFix, and then secure it with a pair of insertable guide tabs. Simple design, easy use, minimal visual footprint, and no more sheets refusing to cooperate.

One user pointed out that you may end up with anchoring points that are too sharp and could accidentally rip your sheets; this person used PETG and admitted that the issue might not have happened with PLA, but nonetheless, you may want to give those points a bit of a sanding. Pro tip: Print the guides in a color close to that of your sheets so they're less visible. Doing so in, say, a bright orange filament could make it more of an eyesore, although the design is so minimalist that it's not going to stick out much.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but one of the reasons I prefer one of the best e-readers over a paper book is the frustration of reading one-handed. Hear me out. With a paper book, it feels like hand gymnastics trying to spread the book open and keep your fingers and thumb out of the way of the words. My hand gets cramped, paperback spines get bent enough that I feel like I'm committing sacrilege, and I can't even flip pages easily. Meanwhile, I can hold an e-reader all day long one-handed and change pages one-handed, too, with a simple tap. I digress, but maybe I would have stuck to my paper books if I'd had this Book Page Holder by fifindr.

The book page holder uses a curved star shape around a thumb hole that should slot in beautifully between pages and hold the book open. It makes comfortable, easy one-handed reading possible, according to several commenters. Plus, the design uses a rotating internal thumb ring so you can maintain a comfortable reading position no matter how your hand is positioned.

The creator has also made two different sizes of rings, 22mm and 25mm, in case you have larger (or smaller) hands. The print should be easy, quick, and require no assembly; the thumb ring is printed inside the enclosure, a brilliant design choice. Your friends and family members can borrow yours, and it won't be a big deal since you can probably just print another one in under an hour.

Listening to music on your earbuds is awesome. Not so awesome is when you take them out and find a chunk of earwax, especially when it ends up inside the tip near the speaker hole, which risks pushing that gunk deeper inside when you try to clean it. Many earbuds have pretty easy-to-remove tips for cleaning, but nonetheless, it's an annoying, sometimes everyday problem depending on how profuse your ears are. Our boy fifindr (who made the book page holder) also made a handy Earbuds Cleaning Tool.

The tool looks like something that every earbud maker should be including with the earbuds it sells. It has a tooth-edged point (brush-like, in the creator's words) small enough to get inside the silicone tip and remove that pesky earwax. On the other end, the toothless pick is useful for scratching grime and gunk out of other locations, like the speaker's filter grilles, under the silicone tip's edges, or dust trapped in the charging port.

Given the size of this thing, you could probably print it in minutes, and it's so small you could bring it everywhere. Print a dozen and put one in every bag and every room of the house. Who knows, maybe you could print yourself an AirPods case that has a little holder for the pick. Just make sure you grab some alcohol and/or wipes to keep it hygienic and spare yourself any ear infections.