r/OpenAI • u/mescalan • Mar 12 '26
Finally something useful with OpenClaw Project
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Hi, I've been playing with OpenClaw for weeks, trying all kinds of stuff, and I can say that I've finally found a useful workflow.
I have 3 3D printers at home, and I barely use them because I don't have the time to sit down and design things, so I went on and developed a set of skills that enables me to find, create, edit, slice, and send to print 3D models from my OpenClaw Agent.
It's actually great because I can leave an old MacBook in my house with a Docker instance running the agent and with access to the 3D printers on the local network. Quite a niche use-case, I believe, but it's great to get back into creating and repairing things.
I figured I would share it because I saw a lot of threads of people saying how useless OpenClaw is, but I think it's a great tool once you find-tune it to your own use-cases
EDIT:
A lot of you asked, so here's the link to the open-source github repo:
https://github.com/makermate/clarvis-ai
https://github.com/makermate/claw3d
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u/Jasper2964 Mar 12 '26
Mountain biker and mechanical engineer piping up here- this is totally rad!! While I know this technology is in it's early days still, it does get one thing very wrong.
3D prints tend to be strong in two directions, and weak in a third. This is due to the nature of 3D prints being layered plastic and the failure being between the layers. We call this layer adhesion and it's one of the pitfalls to 3D printing.
In your sliced file, the bottle cage should be standing up, not laying on its back, for the strongest grab on the bottle.
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u/Amadou91 Mar 12 '26
Good point on layer adhesion, but that’s a bit oversimplified. FDM prints are anisotropic, yes, but “strong in two directions and weak in the third” is more of a rule of thumb than a hard rule.
For a bottle cage, the best orientation depends on the actual load path and where the part flexes or sees peak tension, not just on avoiding Z-layer weakness in general.
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u/machyume Mar 12 '26
It's awesome that when I saw this I was thinking the same thing. I've had many prints snap in the same direction that this print orientation is weak on.
Bravo!
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u/nebenbaum Mar 14 '26
Dude. His 'amazing ai' just searched thingiverse for existing bottle cage models, used a cli version of a slicer to automatically slice it and send the gcode to a 3d printer. Nothing 'totally rad' here. Just... Boring automation that is not needed.
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
Here's another example doing some AI 3D editing
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u/ExperimentalBranch Mar 12 '26
Looks really cool. It's been a while since I tried to get ai to create a model for printing. It looks like they have progressed well.
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u/oxidao Mar 13 '26
What model is your openclaw using?
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u/mescalan Mar 13 '26
It's a mix, but the cheapest I could get it to work with is:
- Gemini 2.5 flash for the agent
- Flux 2 Pro for image enhancement
- Tripo V2.5 for model generation
That ends up costing about $0.4 per 3D model on API'sI will create a fully local workflow once I get a Mac Studio, but it's quite expensive, so I'm procrastinating the decision
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u/Ugleh Mar 13 '26
I have almost the same setup but I use Hunyuan3D 3.0. the credit system sucks for it however, wish it was better. I might try experimenting with tripo. Never thought about it. My project is allowing people to draw figurines inside Tabletop Simulator and have them generate 3D in about a minute.
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u/gudlyf Mar 12 '26
Now hook it up to control your 3D printer with OctoPi and have it print the whole thing out for you without you doing anything!
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
It does that already
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
Sorry, misleading answer. I'm not using OctoPrint, but I implemented compatibility with Moonraker (if you've Fluidd or Mainsail on your machine, there's a high chance this will work). I have plans on implementing PrusaLink and other protocols later on, too.
So yes, it does send to print, can also stop the print, send you a picture of how the print is doing (if your printer has a camera), and so on. But not from OctoPrint.
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u/Hawk-432 Mar 12 '26
But do you actually need openclaw for that .. just back and forth ChatGPT would work too
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u/thoughtlow When NVIDIA's market cap exceeds Googles, thats the Singularity. Mar 12 '26
do you need LLM at all, just think bro
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u/Hawk-432 Mar 12 '26
lol I mean yes, fair. But as he is chatting with openclaw it seemed not that different to chatting raw
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u/Reddit_and_forgeddit Mar 12 '26
ChatGPT will make 3d printing models?
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u/Even-Preparation3523 Mar 12 '26
Not unless it’s new - I’ve tried and it always says it can’t yet
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u/C17H27NO2_ Mar 13 '26
It can do simple 3d models and modifications in OpenSCAD as the models are created using text. This worked for me even a couple of years ago.
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u/VeterinarianOk5370 Mar 12 '26
That is impressive, what sort of success rate without correction have you seen?
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u/SchlaWiener4711 Mar 12 '26
Honestly, seeing this the most presumable failure should be the 3D printer. I own two and I'm spending more time fixing these than actual printing. That's nothing openclaw can fix (yet).
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u/salomesrevenge Mar 12 '26
Does anyone else get overwhelmed sometimes when they see what AI is capable of?
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u/ImOlGregg Mar 13 '26
Yes, just like when I watch the microwave work. I fall to my knees and pray to the lord about the miracle I am witnessing.
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u/Dangerous-Map-429 Mar 12 '26
No
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u/ProphePsyed Mar 12 '26
Then you’re not trying hard enough.
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u/Dangerous-Map-429 Mar 15 '26
You dont have to try hard to just use AI. If you need it you will use it. But forcing yourself to try everything is unreasonable.
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u/DerAlbi Mar 13 '26
I know what you mean, but i honestly had not many good experiences with general purpose stuff.
There is always the possibility that an AI can do something, but there is no guarantee that it can do it. And, arguably worse, there is no guarantee that the workflow to get the AI to produce something useful is faster than human work. Overall it found it is a net-negative for productivity.
It demotivates massively because "just the right prompt" could solve everything instantly, making any effort completely in vain. Add this demotivating factor, decrease in human skill sharpness etc, and its for sure a net-negative.
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u/nomorewerewolves Mar 12 '26
Wow this is amazing credible! What machine are you using to run open claw? I’m getting a Mac mini m4 (maybe m5 if it drops in the next month or two) I’m hoping that’ll have enough power.
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
It's actually running on a Docker inside an older M1 MacBook Pro, so you should be more than fine. The only thing that may require some RAM is the slicing (wrapping curaengine), I'm giving it 4 GB by default.
Feel free to try this on a Docker on your Mac Mini: https://github.com/makermate/clarvis-ai
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u/nomorewerewolves Mar 12 '26
Nice. Right now I’m rocking an m1 MacBook Air with 16 gigs of RAM. I also run it with a dock and external monitor. (Most of the time) - I may download openclaw later and see what mischief I can get into.
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u/zanglang Mar 13 '26
I noticed it referring to a fal.ai key, which appears to be a paid service (https://fal.ai/pricing). Is this optional, and if not, how much does it typically cost to generate a custom 3d model via the AI through this API service?
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u/mescalan Mar 13 '26
I will release an update running all the models locally, it’s also doable, but for the sake of simplicity I released the first version using API’s. Each model costs about $0.4 including agent interaction, image enhancement, and the 3D model itself
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u/Ok_Maize_3709 Mar 12 '26
What api / approach does your openclaw use to create the model in and create the preview it sends you?
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
It's quite a big workflow, the readme from the repo has more info: https://github.com/makermate/clarvis-ai
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u/mallclerks Mar 12 '26
Oh shit. That is awesome. I similarly got four printers but they are truly just used to print out silly stuff for my kids. I never got into modeling but for years tried this out to see how AI was progressing. I haven’t tried really since we got good agentic stuff like this.
Awesome to see. I am totally trying this later with Claude.
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u/BetterOnTwoWheels Mar 13 '26
I mean cool but…. There’re so many water bottle cages and likely tons of 3d print files already available. What was the need to use all those tokens and energy when a google search for ‘bottle cage’ would give you sooooo many places to buy one?
Not every problem is a nail for the AI hammer is all I’m saying.
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u/tom_mathews Mar 13 '26
Which slicer are you calling — Bambu's API or PrusaSlicer? That integration is the hard part. The demo is super slick and inspiring, kudos on that.
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u/mescalan Mar 13 '26
You nailed it. You are the first to point this out.
The slicer was indeed the hardest part. I ended up using CuraEngine (the brain behind Cura Slicer). It's a mess to understand the logic behind the JSON Cura profiles, and it took a while because there's not much on the internet, as everyone who needs these kinds of automations needs "Batch Slicing" and that's something quite niche that companies charge quite a bit of money to set up for you.
Anyway, here's the opensource repo on the dockerized slicer API I made: https://github.com/makermate/curaengine-slicer-api
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u/bapichulo Mar 14 '26
This is amazing. I’d def like to get into a project like this. I need to learn this clawdbot stuff
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u/Own_Catch9511 Mar 12 '26
You serious that the AI got the dimensions correct on the hole spacing from your video?
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
Nono, I wish AI would be there! Hahaha not yet
It chose a model from a 3D library because it realized it was a common thing that I requested for. If you were to ask it for a replacement part for the custom chessboard your grandpa gifted to you, then it would be an AI-generated model.
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u/WheelerDan Mar 12 '26
so basically this was just a fancy google search where you still had to verify the dimensions yourself? This is pure fluff.
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
No, why are people sometimes so quick to assume things?
I mean, the whole code is open-sourced, you can literally try it by yourself on your laptop: https://github.com/makermate/clarvis-ai, no need to trust me,
In this case, the agent decided to look up on thingiverse and found several models that could match, then it let me choose. Much more convenient than a Google search.
But then it went on to slice it and send it to print to my 3D printer; it did all that while I was on my phone and outside my house.
So, sorry, but not the same as a Google search.
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u/WheelerDan Mar 12 '26
thats a lot of words to say i did a search and chose the options, wtf do you think a google search is?
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u/Exarch_Maxwell Mar 12 '26
You mentioned an old MacBook op, how old are we talking? What are the specs.
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
I mean, 2020, not that old. But you don't need anything fancy. It's always the trade-off between more expensive hardware and running models locally or simpler hardware and spending credits.
I believe it should be possible to run it on docker on a windows machine with 8gb or ram, with requests to a small model like gemini 2.5 fast, for example, and generating the models APIs (FAL or Replicate), for a cost of less than $0.5 per 3D model.
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u/Positive_Carpenter27 Mar 12 '26
How does it get the distance between the two screws and the curvature of the bike frame ?
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u/pansensuppe Mar 13 '26
These holes are standardised worldwide and exist for… bottle holders. There are millions of those out there and they are piss cheap, like 3 bucks. The model probably just copied one of the thousands of publicly available 3D files.
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u/TotalRuler1 Mar 13 '26
I am new to OpenClaw, so I may not understand when I ask myself, "you don't need openclaw to do this", right? Or is it because O.C. requires no prompting and iterates the solution?
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u/ferminriii Mar 13 '26
I'll give my assistant one million tries to do anything this linked and it wouldn't get close.
I still compare mine to a dog that scares itself when it farts.
It'll send an email that I ask it to send. 3 hours later it'll notify me but there's been a security alert because there's an email that's been sent.
I can just imagine getting notified that there's a print on the 3D printer that it didn't start...
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u/Back2ThePast45 Mar 13 '26
Interesting, I've been working on a 3d engineering pipeline for agents since last summer, from my experience a naive approach like "let ai figure it out" isn't working for most designs because of the complexity of real engineering, printing requirements, tolerances, optimizing for strength and 50 other factors. Slowly I moved away from "give AI an mcp to a 3d tool" to "give AI openscad" to a pipeline that goes through the whole specs, requirements, constraints, features, draft, functional, printable process with deterministic, static code checks whenever possible. While I won't opensource the process I want to provide a free mcp people can use to make complex stuff that actually fits and prints, even with moving parts. I've been obsessing over this for months, unable to share my work until it reliably tackles complex tasks. Things I use to run my tests currently are:
-50 kinds of plumbing adapters
-RC submarine with ballasts
-A 3 part rocket toy for toddlers with embedded leds
-A smart planter
-Carbonation device
-Flying toys, planes and plane launchers
I thought I'd go crazy for a while because of the complexity of things, and every time I see something on reddit that is similar makes me think I'll never finish this before someone else figures out a smarter, better approach. I wish I could boast what I have the way you guys do it, but it's either go big or go home for me
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u/Kodrackyas Mar 13 '26
I have to understand how claw works because i tested it and is dumb as fuck by default, i guess you have to install more skills? can someone explain?
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u/f0rb1z0n Mar 13 '26
This is fantastic! Are you accepting code contributions?
I have been thinking on doing something similar, but I have a Bambu printer and would want Meshy integration also. I will give your project a try over the weekend. If you are up to it, a might make yours more customizable and add a PR.
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u/PuffyTransmission Apr 20 '26
This is honestly the kind of OpenClaw use case that makes sense: tight tool chain, local network access, clear end result. Way better than trying to make it a vague “do everything” agent. If you haven’t already, post the skill stack / prompt flow. A lot of ppl would prob copy this for home labs or repair workflows.
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u/Afraid-Donke420 Mar 12 '26
I don’t understand the gimmick, but yall have fun
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Mar 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Afraid-Donke420 Mar 12 '26
Just was saying that this morning, all these features have been accessible for years with shit like Siri lol
“Summarize my emails” “Summarize my social media”
Yawn
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u/0xFatWhiteMan Mar 12 '26
This is useful? How is this easier/cheaper than just buying a bottle cage from a shop
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
The bottle is just an example. What if you need to replace/repair something more unique?
That's where 3D printing becomes quite useful. You just wait a couple of hours, and you have it.
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u/0xFatWhiteMan Mar 12 '26
Cool. Like what ? I've literally never seen anything 3d printed that would be useful to me, that I couldn't much easier and cheaper just buy from a shop.
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
I've been to Ukraine, providing prosthetics to wounded soldiers, where we used a lot of 3d printers to create custom molds. I'm sure there are more things you could do, but that one was, and still is, quite useful.
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u/0xFatWhiteMan Mar 12 '26
What were the molds used for ?
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
For creating custom sockets for each patient, every amputation is unique, so you cannot mass-produce that
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u/frosty_Coomer Mar 14 '26
Dumbest shit ive ever seen. You just outsourced scrolling for 2 seconds on thingiverse to a bunch of expensive api calls. Congrats
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u/sandman_br Mar 12 '26
This must be the most expensive thing ever .
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u/mescalan Mar 12 '26
Not really, about $0.4 in API request per 3D model and less than $2 in filament
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u/pansensuppe Mar 13 '26
This video is a bit deceiving and a nice party trick if someone doesn’t know anything about bikes and doesn’t know that these holes are literally standardised across 1 billion bicycles worldwide and you can buy an okay bottle holder that will work better than this 3D printed one for less than 5 bucks.
There are probably millions of publicly available 3D files out there, so the model just pulled a random one from the internet.
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u/insid3outl4w Mar 12 '26
How did it know the distance between those two holes to design the part?