I recently bought some Sennheiser CX3.0 in-ear headphones to replace the CX1.0s that I lost. They came with a bit of a chunky case so I thought I’d make my own little wrap system for them now that we have our 3D printer. I just want them in my bag or pocket without tangling!
My first step was to see what other people had done on thingiverse. Lots of other people had uploaded designs but I thought I’d give it a crack to see how quickly I could make one of my own. I saw that most people simply made a flat design that was extruded to get some strength/ thickness so that’s the path I went down.
I made a few sketches with ideas and then jumped into Autodesk Fusion 360. I find the software a bit confusing and annoying at times having used Creo (formerly Pro Engineer) at uni but it does the job and it’s free for start-ups! For my first design, I just wanted to get the right size hole to put the ear-bud through and lock the cable with the slot. I also wanted to see if the little wrapping area was big enough.
I sketched up the 2D design and then extruded it a few mm to make a 3D design.

This quick design was primarily to check the dimensions and it showed that my hole was the right size and that the area where the cable bunches at the end needed to be made bigger. Having both earbuds in one hole proved a bit cluttered so I decided to use two holes to make it a little less bulky in my pocket. I also realised that I hadn’t put a clip on both ends to hold the cable so I did that too. Rather than have a big square section in the middle I thought a few spaced holes would look nicer and be a little stronger so changed that feature as well to come up with my second design.

You can see by the photo that it stores them quite compactly and means the cable won’t get insanely tangled when thrown in my bag or pocket.
The print times were only about 15mins each, give or take and given they weighed 3-4g each, they only used about 30 cents worth of PLA. Pretty cheap way to stop tangling in my bag!
For those that want to make their own, you can download the STL file here: headphone wrap v2. If you’re designing your own, I used a gap between the wraps was 2mm, the hole for the earbuds is 14mm, and the overall length is 111mm. The thinnest section was 2mm thick which is probably pushing it but we’ll see how it goes!
As for the headphones themselves, they’re amazing! I managed to get them for $78 at JB Hi-Fi. Lots of bass which was surprising given how small they are. Nice and clear sound. Even if Sennheiser is a bit overpriced for what you get, I highly recommend them.