Night, white
Compact straw beehive (3D)
A round straw beehive, the old coiled kind, with up to four laptops inside: a bell of straw coils on a dark round stand, an arched entrance with a landing board, three bees on the dome, and at night thin lines of warm light between the coils. 98 cm tall.
Designed and checked in CAD. Not built in real life yet.
€24
Standard plan. Every computer count included.
Inside
Take it apart
Size
How many computers?
- Height
- 0.98 m
- Footprint
- 88 × 82 cm
- Computers
- 4 laptops
- Power
- 1 power supply, 120 of 260 W
- Filament
- 12.2 kg
- Print time
- 632 h
- OrcaSlicer estimate, ±15 %
- Weight with boards
- 16.3 kg
- Parts and filament, without boards
- €439
- With used laptops (€40–60 each)
- €599–679
About this model
A generic straw skep, the bell-shaped beehive of coiled straw from old farm gardens, not a copy of any product. The skep itself is the model: a round bell of straw coils, each coil a real ridge you can feel, standing on a dark round stand. At the front, just above the stand, an arched entrance with a dark landing board under it; three bees with striped bodies and raised wings walk up the dome. The top of the dome, with its coils, lifts off as one piece and is the service hatch. At night a warm light shines out through thin dashes in the grooves between the lower coils of the dome, and the base glows behind the entrance. 0.88 x 0.82 m with the stand and the landing board, 98 cm to the top of the dome.
Worth knowing
About 10.5 kg of filament with two computers and 12.2 kg with four (roughly 340 to 400 hours on a fast printer), in two colours: honey straw for the coils of the body and the dome, the inner lamp wall, the roof plate and the bees' light stripes and wings, and dark brown for the stand, the landing board, the case walls (hidden inside), the dome flange, the spacers and the bees' tails, dark stripes and heads. The body and dome skins are thin (about 1 mm) and flexible until they are glued; the spacers and the lap tongues hold them. Nothing has been printed yet: how it looks and holds up in plastic has only been worked out on paper, not seen on a real print. It is a static desk model.
Shopping list
What to buy for it
| Item | Qty | Price each | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared supply MEAN WELL GST280A20-C6P | 1 | €93.80 | Shop |
| Mains cord C13, 2 m, one per supply (not in the supply's box) | 1 | €3.60 | Shop |
| Supply output lead Molex 215328-1061 | 1 | €5.20 | Shop |
| XT60 pigtails, 5 + 5 pack (one pair per blade) | 1 | €11.09 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Wago 221-412 (2-way), single pieces: 4 per blade (red+fuse, fuse+white, black+black, blue alone) | 16 | €0.55 | Shop |
| Wago 221-415 (5-way), single pieces: 4 for the bus + 2 per extra supply | 4 | €0.80 | Shop |
| ELNONE board plug, 2 pack (one per blade) | 2 | €8.56 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| JZK 5015 USB fans, 4 pack (blade heads + 4 base intake fans) | 2 | €13.61 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Fuse holders, 5 pack (blades) | 1 | €6.82 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| 5 A fuses, 10 pack | 1 | €6.75 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Keystone couplers, 10 pack | 1 | €14.36 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Patch 0.25 m, 10 pack | 1 | €12.85 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Patch 2 m, 5 pack | 1 | €11.09 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Switch Cudy GS105U 5-port | 1 | €13.01 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| USB charger 50 W, 5 ports | 2 | €9.52 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| OULARA COB USB strip 2 m (model glow) | 1 | €21.17 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| OULARA COB USB strip 1 m (on the inside of the square straw liner under the dome, round two walls each, the liner glows behind the dashes) | 2 | €14.11 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| M3 screws, 300 pcs | 1 | €14.05 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Translucent PETG 1 kg (eSUN transparent orange) | 1 | €12.37 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Opaque PETG 1 kg spool (eSUN black, budget; sold as a 4 kg bundle) | 12 | €9.07 | Shop Ad, affiliate link |
| Total, without boards | €439 | ||
Prices with VAT as shown in October 2026. Shipping, glue and the boards are not included. Also not counted, if you do not own them: a multimeter (about €8.56) and a power strip (about €15.12).
Budget black PETG.
Drives: every board keeps the drive its laptop came with (system only), so there is nothing to buy. A board bought without one needs a 256 GB M.2 2280 drive (approx. €56). Optional, not in the total: one shared disk of 1 TB or more for the render manager's shared folder, on one laptop board, in its own M.2 slot, or in a USB case (approx. €19) on the base floor. Reuse an old one, or buy a 1 TB M.2 2280 drive for approx. €136–146. Drive prices are approximate (October 2026): check before buying.
No printer yet?
To print it at this size: 12.2 kg of PETG. Add 10% for waste and test pieces and that is 14 spools of 1 kg, approx. €196–266 with the PETG below (the shopping list above already includes filament). Print time, estimated: about 632 h with the standard 0.4 mm nozzle (Ender-3 V3 SE class), 396 h with a 0.6 mm nozzle.
Print times are slicer estimates (OrcaSlicer) and may vary by ±15 %.
Advertising: the links in this list are affiliate links. If you buy through them I earn a small commission. The price for you does not change.
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Printers that take every part (bed 220 × 220 mm or more): Creality Ender-3 V3 SE (€169) · Bambu Lab A1 (€259) · Bambu Lab P1S (€379)
PETG: Elegoo PETG Pro, 1 kg (€13.99/kg) · Bambu PETG Basic, 1 kg with spool (€18.99/kg)
Prices as shown on each shop's own page in October 2026. Shipping and the final VAT are added at checkout.