This is a parametric generator for plastic foundation for honeycomb, using a proper rhombic cell base at the ideal angle. It is intended to be used in other projects, not printed directly. The STL is just meant as a visual example, don't try to print it by itself.

NOTE: This is as-yet untested with actual bees, and it'll be a while before I can do so. Let me know if you have any luck, or don't!

Opening and rendering the file generates an example sheet of 100x100mm foundation, with a 1mm thick backbone.

You can use it in your project by dropping in the same folder and running:

use <honeycomb.scad>;

You can generate sheets of foundation with the foundation_sheet module, taking the following parameters:

• w - Foundation sheet width, should be horizontal in the hive.
• v - Vertical length, should be up and down in the hive (direction of points).
• cell_size - Size from horizontal upright to upright, including cell wall space.
• backbone - The thickness of the backbone. Consider your printer's feature size and make sure it's not too weak. Thicker = more plastic but the bees won't care.
• gap - Creates a little flat ridge between the cells for the wall to be drawn from. Keep this pretty thin, but printable.
• draw - Print drawn comb by adding this depth to each side of the comb. Probably usable for decorative effect only, you have been warned.

Note that bees care which way around the foundation goes. The hexagons should be pointing up and down vertically in the hive, not side to side horizontally.

The thickness of the whole sheet, including the rhombic cell base, is non-trivial to calculate, so a helper function is available called foundation_sheet_thickness. This takes the cell size, backbone, and draw for the sheet and returns its thickness.

Licence is BSD, so you can pretty much use for anything.

EDIT 1: Fix for cell shape thanks to https://www.thingiverse.com/JLSJ