QR Code Pet Tag

This is one contest I can get behind! One of our dogs has seizures, and takes medication for them twice a day. If he was to go without his medication it would certainly lead to him having a seizure.

If you never experienced an episode, I don’t wish it upon you since it is a VERY scary experience. You think they are choking or dying right in front of you. My wife and I were woken up at 5am for the first seizure he had, and that was a day we will never forget!

Most generic pet tags have contact information and the pets name, this is very useful but a pet that has a medical condition and someone were to find them having say a seizure they might try to “save” the pet and could cause further harm than help just by not knowing, or the pet my come out of the seizure not fully aware of their surroundings (which is typical) and the fight or flight reaction may cause harm to the individual trying to help.

So I started thinking about how to get the most out of a pet tag in such a small “pawprint” < pun intended :)

This brought me to QR codes, since pretty much everyone carries a smart phone and knows what to do when they see a QR Code. With the code sending them to a vCard info page all of the information is at the fingertips of the individual finding the pet.

During the design of this tag I tried several different online qr code platforms, and https://www.qrcodechimp.com/ is the one that I found could give everyone the best results since most of them are paid monthly where qr code chimp has a free option that you can create unlimited qr codes, but only can have them scanned 1000 times a month (if your pet breaks out that much, then you might just want to let them be free lol) 

Back to being serious… 

I have uploaded a few STL’s to get you started and recorded a short video of the settings I used in qr code chimp to get you started. Once I designed the QR Code I brought it into Adobe Illustrator to clean up the QR code a bit before bringing it into Fusion 360 to create the STL. Just be sure you keep scanning the QR code when you're modifying it to verify that it's still scanning, also if you place it on the bottom of your model it will need to be flipped.

Printing was “fun” :( about the only time I wished that I had a smaller nozzle to help with printing the detail of the QR code, no worries this was printed with a 0.4mm nozzle just took print after print to get the scale and size right. (Sure I could have just printed it BIGGER, but then my dog would have looked like Flavor Flav walking around with a clock around his neck haha). Also there was filament selection, you definitely want contrasting filaments but also something that has a matte finish at least that is what I found in my struggles.

Here's the direct link in case the “fake” QR code gets scanned too many times. I’ve made a real one for Rocky to wear that has our contact info on it. https://www.qrcodechimp.com/page/rocky50?v=chk1680647610

Hope this all helps someone, and please share with me your designs!

Filament used:
Prusament Gravity Grey Hex (Joe told you this years April Fools was not a joke)
Black - eSun PLA+ 

Take Care,
Darrell