YouTube lunatic designed and 3D printed a working mechanical calculator
A YouTuber known as 3D all Workshop successfully designed and 3D printed a functional mechanical calculator using plastic filament. The device utilizes a Leibniz stepped drum mechanism to perform addition and multiplication within a palm-sized form factor. The project required approximately 100 design iterations over two months to resolve issues with printing tolerances and mechanical backlash.
- ▪The calculator is based on the Leibniz stepped drum, a component invented by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over 200 years ago.
- ▪The device can accept inputs from 1 to 999 and performs addition and multiplication but lacks the space for subtraction or division.
- ▪The final build consists of 109 separate pieces and required 17 hours of printing time using 90 grams of filament.
- ▪The creator addressed mechanical issues such as gear binding and backlash by implementing custom-designed 3D-printed springs and a ratchet mechanism.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 25 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Designing a Fully 3D-Printed Mechanical Calculator — Hackaday
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| Original publisher | The Register |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/09/30/youtube-lunatic-designed-and-3d-printed-a-working-mechanical-calculator/5300273 |
| Publication time | Wed, 30 Sep 2026 22:39:35 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-30T21:07:05.756Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-30T21:07:05.756Z |
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| Cluster | wuWNN7CncKIx · 2 stories |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); offbeat YouTube lunatic designed and 3D printed a working mechanical calculator If you can't afford a Curta, we still don't recommend trying this: It'll eat up months of your life and all the filament you have Brandon Vigliarolo Brandon Vigliarolo GOVERNMENT AND IT NEWS REPORTER Published wed 30 Sep 2026 // 21:39 UTC READ MORE A 1980s PDP-11 is still running Unix – and now you can watch 7 days ago The improbable music of the ZX Spectrum's one-bit speaker 17 days ago Digital Research's…
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