PythonSCAD Pin Cutout

Reusable, parametric recesses for hot-gluing metal brooch pins into PythonSCAD models.

The generated cutter is a rectangular pocket with two circular recesses. The recesses leave matching knobs in the printed part, which locate the pin and give the hot glue more surface area.

Installation

PythonSCAD Pin Cutout requires PythonSCAD 1.1.0 or newer:

pip install pythonscad-pincutout

Usage

Import the package, render a cutter, position it for your design, and subtract it from the solid:

import pincutout
from pythonscad import cube

base = cube([40, 40, 2])
pin_cutter = pincutout.PinCutout.generic_25mm().render().translate([7.25, 17.45, 0])

show(base - pin_cutter)

render() deliberately applies no X/Y positioning or model-specific centering. The pocket begins at PythonSCAD's default origin and is shifted downward only by epsilon to make the boolean operation robust.

Custom dimensions

All dimensions are in millimetres:

cutout = pincutout.PinCutout(
    length=30.0,
    width=6.0,
    depth=0.6,
    knob_diameter=2.4,
    knob_gap=8.0,
    epsilon=0.001,
    fn=128,
).render()

• length, width, and depth describe the rectangular pocket.
• knob_diameter is the diameter of each circular recess.
• knob_gap is the edge-to-edge space between the recesses. Their centre-to-centre distance is knob_gap + knob_diameter.
• epsilon extends overlapping geometry to avoid coincident boolean faces.
• fn controls the circular tessellation.

Invalid or non-finite dimensions are rejected before rendering. The knobs must fit completely within the pocket.

Presets

PinCutout.generic_25mm() reproduces the measured geometry this project was extracted from: a 25.5 × 5.1 × 0.4 mm pocket with 2 mm knobs separated by a 6 mm edge-to-edge gap. It is intentionally generic and does not claim compatibility with a particular vendor.

Preset values can be overridden:

cutout = pincutout.PinCutout.generic_25mm(depth=0.6, fn=64)

Future presets should be based on measured hardware and identify their source.

Development

Clone the repository and install the project and development tools:

git clone https://github.com/nomike/pythonscad-pincutout.git
cd pythonscad-pincutout
uv sync --all-groups
pre-commit install --hook-type pre-commit --hook-type commit-msg
uv run pre-commit run --all-files

See CONTRIBUTING.md for commits and pull requests, VERSIONING.md for automated releases, and PUBLISHING.md for the one-time GitHub and package-index setup.

License

BSD 3-Clause