How Clicker Wonderland makes a 3D-printable clicker button
A clicker is a button you press for no reason at all, and it only feels right if something inside it actually clicks. So this app does not print a click — it builds a printable housing around a real mechanical keyboard switch, and the switch supplies the sound. Drop in a picture, pick a shape, or drop in a 3D model you already own, and you get two parts to print and one part to buy.
What you get
Two parts, every time: a base that holds the switch and a cap that presses down on it. Both come out of the app already laid flat in the orientation they should print in, so there is nothing to rotate and nothing to work out. A flat clicker needs no supports at all.
You can save the design as one 3MF file that carries every part and every colour together, or as a zip of plain STL files. The colour in a 3MF is real geometry with per-triangle colour, not a texture painted on top, which is why a slicer can see it at all. A zip of STLs carries no colour — that is the format, not the app.
What you need
One MX-compatible mechanical keyboard switch for every button in the design. The plate the switch clips into is the 14.0 mm MX standard, so an ordinary switch off a keyboard-parts shelf fits; the fit here was measured against a Kailh BOX White.
An FDM 3D printer, and PLA or PETG. A multi-colour system such as an AMS or an MMU is a bonus and not a requirement: the colours are written into the 3MF for the machines that have one, and a single-extruder printer prints the same file in whatever filament is loaded. The cheapest two-tone result on any printer is to run the base and the cap in different filaments — they are already separate objects.
What people make with it
A child's drawing that clicks
Photograph the drawing, drop it in, and the traced outline becomes the button face. It is the same print as a name tag and a very different object to hand to a grandparent.
The family pet
A photo with a clean edge traces well. The app simplifies the colours down to what filament can actually print and keeps the shapes that matter, so a dog's silhouette survives and the fur does not turn into confetti.
A logo on the desk
Drop an SVG or a transparent PNG and the wordmark keeps its own colours. Small disconnected letters get a smooth rounded backing so they are not thrown away and the switch tower still has something solid to stand on.
A team badge or a name button
Pick a built-in shape, add raised or engraved lettering, and turn on the badge-pin back before you export. Text auto-shrinks to fit the face and the app says so if a letter would hang past the edge.
A clicker keychain
Turn the loop on and thread a split ring through the printed hole. The loop is a flat tab lying on the bed, so it prints without support wherever you put it around the rim.
A gift you did not buy
A shared joke, a band logo, a first-day-of-school date. The whole point of a one-off is that it costs the same as any other one-off, which is a spool you already have and an hour of a printer you already own.
A classroom or market-stall set
One design, many faces. Several well-spaced pieces of one picture can each get their own switch and become their own button, so a single print can come off the bed as a small controller rather than as one clicker.
Print settings that are true here
The suggested profile is a 0.2 mm layer height, three perimeters — the guide skirt is 1.6 mm thick, so three walls make it fully solid — and 15 % infill or more, which barely matters because the parts are mostly wall anyway. Use a brim only if your bed adhesion is poor.
Supports: none, for a flat clicker. The one exception is a clicker cut out of your own 3D model, which prints standing on its underside with the switch socket facing the plate. Supports under its sculpted overhangs are fine and often needed — but use normal supports, never tree supports, which grow a trunk under the ring around the socket mouth and carry straight on up into the slot that grips the switch. That was sliced and measured rather than guessed.
How the click actually happens
The middle of the base is a solid tower fused to the floor. Its top 1.6 mm is a standard MX mounting plate with a 14.0 mm cutout for the switch clips to grab, with a relief pocket for the switch body underneath and a deeper one for the pins. Your press travels stem, plate, tower, floor — so nothing flexes, even on a wide button.
The cap is held on by a female MX-cross socket that grips the switch stem by friction, exactly the way an injection-moulded keycap does. The cavity is 4.0 mm deep with 0.30 mm of roof clearance, and its nominal cross allowance is 0.20 mm — a positive clearance that prints as a press fit, because a 0.4 mm nozzle rounds the corners of a slot that size and supplies the interference itself. Retention lives there and nowhere else: the overlap between the two shells is a guide, not a latch, with 0.6 mm of sliding clearance, and the default 4.0 mm of press travel clears the 3.6 mm at which a BOX White bottoms out.
Questions people ask
- Which switch fits?
- Any MX-compatible mechanical keyboard switch. The plate cutout is the 14.0 mm MX standard, and the cap grips the stem cross the way an ordinary keycap does. The fit here was measured against a Kailh BOX White. If your switch sits loose or tight in the plate, Plate Cutout under Advanced moves it by 0.1 mm at a time; if the cap will not seat, the MX-cross socket fine-tune beside it loosens the cross.
- Do I need supports?
- Not for a flat clicker. Both parts export already laid flat and nothing inside the switch socket needs holding up. A clicker cut from your own 3D model is the exception: supports under its sculpted overhangs are fine, but use normal supports rather than tree supports, which grow a trunk in through the socket mouth and break the surfaces that grip the switch.
- Does my picture leave my computer?
- Not while you are designing. The picture is traced and turned into geometry in your own browser, and you can design all day without sending us anything. The one exception is the moment you press a save button: to build the file we receive the design settings and the picture the design uses. That is the only time anything leaves your computer, and the Privacy notice says so in those words.
- Is it free?
- Designing is free and needs no account. Downloading needs a free account — a sign-in link by email, or Google, and no password to remember. Free while we're in beta — try it now, and help us make it better.
- Which printers and slicers work?
- Any FDM printer that can hold a 0.2 mm layer, and any slicer that opens 3MF or STL — which is all of them. The support behaviour described above was measured in Bambu Studio. PLA and PETG both work; a multi-colour system is a bonus and not a requirement.
- Can I make a keychain?
- Yes. Turn the loop on before you export and thread a split ring through the printed hole after the print. The loop is a flat tab lying on the print bed, so it needs no support at any position around the rim. A lanyard slot and a badge-pin back work the same way — turn one on before exporting.
- What sizes can I print?
- From 30 mm to 118 mm across the longest side. The switch is the same size at every setting, so a small clicker is mostly mechanism and a large one is mostly picture. A design whose separate buttons would need more than 100 mm to fit their sockets is refused rather than quietly shrunk.
- Can I print it in one colour?
- Yes, and most people do. A single-extruder printer prints the file in whatever filament is loaded, and the two parts are separate objects, so running the base and the cap in different filaments gives you two-tone for free. If you want the picture to read on a one-colour print, choose a raised or engraved finish rather than the flush one, which sits level with the face and is only a colour.
There is a step-by-step complete guide to every control in the app, and the Terms and Privacy notice are in full.
Clicker Wonderland by Babah3D · https://babah3d.com