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MB-203HardwarePrint-ready2026

Two-Door Guinea Pig Cottage

A parametric, 3D-printable hideout designed around animal behavior and printability. Five parts, no fasteners, no glue, no supports, and a build script that refuses to package a non-manifold mesh.

Exploded render showing how the cottage's gables, side walls and roof slide and snap together.
Fig. 1 · Exploded render showing how the cottage's gables, side walls and roof slide and snap together.

Two guinea pigs need two exits, so neither can be cornered. That one behavioral requirement drove the design: a gable at each end with its own arched doorway, windowed side walls, and a shingled roof.

Designed for the printer

  • Vertical-slide dovetails. Every joint assembles along Z, so the dovetail cross-section is identical on every layer: tight fit, no overhang, no support.
  • The roof prints ridge-up, so every layer, shingles included, sits inside the one below.
  • Safety details: the doorstep is a ramp rather than a step, window panes are too small for a head, the bottom is open, it comes apart without tools for washing, and it’s PETG only.

The lesson: “manifold” isn’t “printable”

An early trim part passed OpenSCAD’s own check and was rejected by the slicer, because two arms of a corner pilaster touched along a single edge. The build script now counts every edge not shared by exactly two triangles and refuses to package the part.