Lettering for Open House Yard Sign

UPDATE: Info at the bottom. For Realtors, open houses are common. When presenting an open house, pointer signs are often placed at street corners to help direct people to the available home.

What I've found annoying is that if I want to put the date and time, I normally strip any previous date and time on the sign (usually held to the sign by packing tape), then print the current info (to keep it readable) and tape it to the sign. This is time-consuming, wasteful, annoying, and will often damage the finish of the sign. 

So I designed this lettering system. I created a carrier plate for each side of the sign that's permanently mounted to the sign using mounting tape. I then created tiles for the days of the week, and some basic numbers and punctuation for the time. Finally, I designed a very simple way to lock the tiles in place so they won't fall out of the carrier. This is very much like the plastic name tags for offices from the 60's (the white-lettering-on-black-background plastic plates that you'd slide into a metal tray on the wall).

I designed these at 144 pt (2" tall) so they could be read from at least 20' away, and as people drove by. The trays can be scaled up or down on the X-axis, or multiple trays can be butted together - I kept the ends simple in case larger sizes were needed.

I printed these in PLA. ASA would probably be a better choice, but since the signs are outside for a maximum of a day or two, and usually shorter, I don't think UV exposure is a thing. The wedge is used to lock the tiles in place. It's pretty simple: just slide one wedge underneath each end tile. It doesn't have to be slammed in, just enough to feel some resistance. When you're done, and especially if you're using PLA, I would remove the wedge and tiles. If you leave the wedge in place, PLA can deform under pressure over the longer term.

Print Details:

0.2 mm layer height

15% infill. While I don't think pattern is critical, I'm using gyroid.

Supports will be needed for the carrier only, but I did some changes that made it easy to remove the supports (the defaults made it really difficult):
- Auto tree supports are enabled.
- Under advanced, bottom Z distance is increased to 0.3
- Under advanced, base pattern spacing is 3.

The primary 3mf file holds all the plates and is set up for the K2 Plus.

If you're using a single-color printer, to print the tiles, set up a filament change at layer 11 and switch to black.

The wedge is used to lock down the tiles. I put it behind each end tile to hold it in..

If you're using PLA, take the wedges out of the sign when you're done. PLA will modify its shape under pressure over time. ASA shouldn't have the issue (though I haven't yet tested it on this model).

UPDATE: I've added several files to improve the set:

• Carrier Extension - a basic bracket extension
• Half-spacer - a smaller blank plate to create some space between the day and the time.
• Full-spacer - a larger blank plate
• TODAY - An addition for the day. Especially good for an open house on consecutive days.
• NOW! - Another addition for the day.