Custom furniture joints generated for the design you actually want to build.

Why 3D printing makes modular furniture interesting

Traditional furniture hardware is usually fixed: a bracket has one angle, one size and one purpose. 3D printing makes it possible to generate a joint around the structure instead. In HexaNect, connector geometry can respond to the directions of the boards meeting at a junction and to the dimensions of the material being used.

That is especially useful for maker furniture, shelving and prototypes where a design may contain many different junctions. A single project can require simple two-arm connectors, multi-direction junctions, pass-through arrangements or wall-mount variants. HexaNect identifies those junctions from the finished design and prepares the exact STL files needed.

Friction fit that is practical to tune

HexaNect centers on friction-fit joints because they keep assembly simple and can produce surprisingly rigid furniture without putting a screw through every connection. In hands-on testing, standard honeycomb structures have performed very well, including one informal test where a single hexagon supported full body weight.

Actual board thickness and printer calibration can vary a little, so the builder includes a fit adjustment. In practice this is just a useful tuning control, not something that should make the system feel fragile or unpredictable.

PLA, PETG or ABS?

The system does not depend on one special filament. PLA, PETG and ABS can all work well when printed with good layer bonding and sensible settings.

PLA is easy to print and works fine for many indoor furniture projects. PETG is the material I personally use most often because it is a useful middle ground between PLA and ABS: strong, still approachable to print, and with a little more give than PLA. ABS is also a good option when your printer is set up to handle it consistently.

The bigger goal is a clean, strong print rather than chasing a specific brand or exotic polymer.

3D prints are directional — and that can be designed around

There is a common idea that 3D-printed parts are automatically weak. That misses an important point: an FDM print is a directional material. It is usually strongest when loads travel through continuous roads of plastic within the printed layers and more vulnerable when a force tries to peel or split those layers apart.

HexaNect connectors are designed around that reality. The intended print orientation is chosen so the normal forces from the boards are carried through favorable printed paths rather than simply pulling across layer interfaces. In other words, print orientation is part of the connector design itself.

A useful comparison is wood grain or plywood. Wood is not equally strong in every direction either, yet it can be extremely strong when the grain and geometry are used correctly. FDM parts work on a similar principle: good geometry + good orientation + good layer bonding can produce parts that are much stronger than people often expect.

The same orientation is also chosen to keep the connectors practical to manufacture. The family is designed to print cleanly without support material and without unnecessary difficult overhangs, so the parts do not need a complicated support-removal process before assembly.

Recommended starting print settings

The connectors do not need to be printed nearly solid to work well. For this geometry, the outer walls/perimeters and print orientation do a lot of the structural work, so sensible perimeter thickness is more important than simply pushing infill as high as possible.

The recipe that has worked well in my builds is 0.4 mm nozzle, 0.2 mm layer height, 4 walls, 4 top layers, 4 bottom layers and 20% infill.

Those numbers are recommendations, not rules. A different nozzle size, layer height, material or printer profile may call for different values. If you already have a strong, reliable profile for your machine, adapt the settings while keeping the same basic priorities: good layer bonding, enough perimeter thickness and the intended print orientation.

From a junction to a printable STL

The browser builder maintains the furniture geometry while you add cells, shelves and boards. Once the junctions are known, HexaNect determines which connector forms are required and generates the corresponding meshes locally in the browser using OpenSCAD WebAssembly.

The export package can then include the unique connector STL files, quantities, board cut information and an assembly guide. This makes connector generation part of the design process instead of a separate CAD task after the furniture has already been planned.

• Design the modular structure in the browser.
• Set the actual board dimensions and connector settings.
• Let HexaNect calculate the connector variants from the geometry.
• Export the STL files and manufacturing information together.

What can you build with 3D-printed furniture connectors?

HexaNect is based around a hexagonal and honeycomb-inspired modular system, but the goal is broader than one shelf shape. Practical uses include shoe storage, bookshelves, display furniture, nightstands, entryway or console tables, plant stands, record storage, room dividers and custom one-off pieces.

The system is intended for normal household furniture and reasonable everyday loads. It is not a replacement for a heavy-duty garage rack, structural framing or other safety-critical construction.

The current public beta has been physically prototyped with real plywood and printed connectors, and the emphasis is on useful maker furniture that can be designed, printed and assembled without turning every project into a full CAD exercise.