Oh, vaping. It went from a way for me to stop smoking traditional cigarettes to a straight-up hobby. I build coils and store my stuff on one side of my kitchen table, so that side was pretty much covered with bits of wire and cotton, bottles filled to varying levels, and strewn mods and atomizers. I needed a way to contain all of this madness. Rather than buy an expensive ecig stand, I decided to design my own and have it 3d printed. Let’s get started on my process.

Step 1: Plan Your Design

I had never designed in CAD before, so the easiest, cheapest, quickest way to get started was to use TinkerCAD. I made an account, logged in, and went through a few of their tutorials to get started. It’s really quick to learn, so after a half hour of tinkering, I felt that I was ready to start building my stand.

I planned it out that I wanted an area for atomizers, two areas for juice wells, a section for mods, and then a section on the back for various components such as cotton, wire, screwdrivers, box mods, etc. It helps to sketch out your design on paper first. Let's get started.

Step 2: Create Your Atomizer Layer

I wanted the front to be an area for atomizers, and I wanted a little raised cylinder with a hole for the 510 connector, so that the atomizers just look like they are sitting flush with the raised cylinder. Use the rectangle tool to create a rectangle the length, width, and height that you want for your atomizer stand. I chose 35mm wide x 185mm long x 10mm tall.

Then use the cylinder tool to add 23mm cylinders. For me, six fit along the base. I choose 23mm because most of my atomizers are 22 or 23mm. If you have larger or smaller atomizers, you can tweak your cylinders to fit. A tip: holding down the shift key while you drag the cylinder will keep the length and width of the cylinder equal.

NOTE: In order for things to 3d print correctly, the shapes must be overlapping a little bit. So for the orange cylinders above, you wouldn’t put them just on top of the red rectangle, but would instead make it 1mm lower, so that’s it’s actually sitting inside the other shape. This makes sure that they print as one object, instead of two separate objects.

Step 3: Add Your 510 Holes

Then I measured my 510 connectors, and made a hole (using the hole tool in Tinker CAD) a few millimeters bigger than that in the center of each cylinder. I made my hole 9mm diameter, and 6mm deep. You could probably tweak this a little if you wanted a tighter fit, but I wanted plenty of room so I left it that size. Add one hole to each cylinder that you created. You can use the align tool in Tinker CAD to make sure your holes are lined up properly.

Step 4: Add Juice Rows

Now I wanted two rows for juice. You could do more than that, as many as your 3d printer will allow.

First, make the first row. It should be the same length as your atomizer row, wide enough to fit 15 or 30 ml bottles (whichever you are designing for), and tall enough for your liking. I made my first row 41mm wide x 185mm long x 26mm high. Then I made the second row 41mm wide x 185mm long x 39mm tall. Might seem like weird numbers, but I eyeballed it until I liked how it looked. Feel free to make those numbers different for your own.

Step 5: Add Your Mods Section

I wanted a section to show off my mechanical mods. I created another rectangle 33mm wide x 185mm long x 60mm tall. This created a nice tall space for me. Finally, I added a little backdrop layer, 13mm wide x 185mm long x 60mm tall.

Step 6:

Final step of the building design. I wanted some cubby holes to put wire, screwdrivers, box mods, etc. First I created a base for it, 54mm wide x 185mm long x 6mm high.

Then I added partitions. I didn't want the cubbies to be too deep (imagine trying to pick up a blue handled screwdriver out of a 3" deep well; no thanks), so I made them rather shallow by creating 4mm wide x 53 mm long x 20mm tall. I created four of them; you could do as many or as few as you like to make smaller/larger cubbies.

I made a front plate for it by creating a rectangle 6mm wide x 185mm long x 25mm tall.

Finally, I used the wedge tool to create 4mm wide x 51mm long x 53mm tall wedges, one for each partition.