A squat stool is a wedge that lifts your knees so your colon stops doing a kink. It sits around the base of the toilet, and you put your feet up on it while you go. You can buy one, or you can print one in PETG and keep a printer busy for most of a day. I did the second one, and I use it every day.
It’s my most popular model on MakerWorld, where Bambu Lab hosts people’s printable models, by a wide margin.
I made it because the printable stools I kept finding online often ate around 1.5 kg of filament, which is ridiculous. I wanted to see if a printed one could compete with a store-bought one on value. Honestly, I fell a little short. You can probably still get a Squatty Potty-style stool online for about $9 to $12. But it’s good enough, and depending on where you live, it might be worth it.
The parts
Five unique parts:
- Two top boards, left and right
- One key leg that joins the boards in the middle
- Four side legs, two per side
- Five optional TPU feet for tile and other slick floors
Everything press-fits, which means the pieces push together snug and stay put without glue. TPU is the soft, bendy kind of filament, which is why it’s the one for the feet.
Assembled it stands about 160 mm tall, a little over six inches, and fits a foot up to a US men’s 11. It slides in close to the bowl when you’re not using it, same as the store-bought kind. Total material is a little over 600 g, so well under that 1.5 kg. The download is five STL model files and two Bambu print profiles. It’s under the Standard Digital File License, so personal use only.
Not in PLA
PETG only. I want to be clear about this because people will read “PLA looks fine” and then it will look fine right up until it shatters under a foot. PLA is brittle. PETG bends. They’re the two most common filaments, and they’re not interchangeable here. This thing has been tested to 180 lb of resting feet, and “resting” is the operative word. One reviewer’s kid loves it. Please don’t let your kid stand on it.
- Designer profile: 0.2 mm layers, 3 walls, 15% infill, three plates, about 21 hours total on an X1C
- Feet: separate 2.3-hour TPU profile
A plate is one full load on the printer’s bed, so that’s three separate prints for the stool, and the feet go on their own. The feet are a separate profile because Bambu Studio threw a fit about mixing filament types on one plate when I set it up.
Reviews
They’re consistent: it fits, it’s solid, it takes forever to print. A few people have glued the joints for extra stiffness, and a few have hit the top and feet with liquid rubber or Plasti Dip, the stuff people dip tool handles in, for grip. Both of those are good ideas I didn’t have. The long print time is the one complaint I agree with. Something faster on less material is on the someday list.