1/22/2026 - Project Research

I’ve seen lots of different light switch covers lately, and I thought it could be a cool project to design a few for my bedroom. I haven’t seen many with industrial-style designs, but I thought it would be interesting to explore.

The first step I took was to look at MakerWorld and see if I could get any inspiration. I found some cool designs but nothing exactly like what I was looking for. Anyway, I would have to make it specific to my light switch.

Here are some of the interesting designs I was talking about:

• https://makerworld.com/en/models/1074655-fire-alarm-light-switch-cover-screw-on?from=search#profileId-1065167
• https://makerworld.com/en/models/1381950-star-wars-light-side-dark-side-light-switch-cover?from=search#profileId-1445076
• https://makerworld.com/en/models/1615652-nintendo-switch-light-switch-cover-rocker-cover?from=search#profileId-1704902

None of these designs had what I was looking for, so I decided to create my own. The first thing I did was take measurements of the sockets in my bedroom.

Specifically, I have four in total: two single-switch covers and two covers with both a switch and a power outlet. I measured both types, and these are the measurements I recorded:

After talking with ChatGPT, I got a clearer idea of what I wanted the designs to look like. I decided to give them an industrial feel, with titles like CAUTION and some text like “Authorized Use Only.”

I want to make three designs: two for the single-switch covers and one for the switch-and-power-outlet cover. After thinking it over, I came up with these three designs. None of them are final, but they will be very similar to these.

I also did some research on multi-color 3D printing and found that the best option is to use a 3D printer with AMS, but it is also possible without AMS. Lastly, I created the project's GitHub repo:
https://github.com/adrirubio/light-switch-covers

1/28/2026 - Single Socket Cover 1 Design

It took much longer than I expected to complete the first single socket cover because I ran into various issues during the 3D design process.

I began by creating a sketch using the dimensions I recorded in the last journal and padded it by 7 mm, which is the depth of the sockets in my bedroom. I then applied the thickness parameter with an outward thickness of 3 mm, making the interior hollow.

After this, I made a square pocket of 4.5 mm. This is the cutout for the light switch. This was pretty fast to make, and this is what it looked like at that point.

Now I needed to add the text and the caution symbols. This is where things started to get a bit more complicated. I started by having a look at how to add text. I used the ShapeString parameter from the Draft workbench and found a font I liked.

Soon I had the CAUTION text on the top of the cover with a nice font. Here I found that I didn't want the text alone and that I wanted it to have the rectangular outline that most CAUTION signs have.

I decided that the best way to do this was to add a rectangle, giving the rectangle a different color from the case, and keeping the CAUTION text the same color. This didn’t inherently work though. I went through a bit of trial and error to get to the finished outline.

Specifically, I didn't know if the best option was to pad or pocket the rectangle. Eventually, I found that if I placed it 1 mm under the cover and then padded it by 1 mm, it would be right on top of the case cover.

Trial and error:

Eventual CAUTION text outline:

The CAUTION text wasn’t any easier, because when I tried to pad it, for some reason, only the first letter would get padded, and other times it didn’t appear at all.

I didn't find any information on why this was happening, and I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. I also wondered if the errors were because I was using FreeCAD on Ubuntu and that it might have had compatibility problems.

Before padding:

Only C getting padded:

ShapeString disappearing:

After trying for a while, I found that these things only happened in some bodies, and in others they didn’t. Eventually, after trying in the base body, I got it working, but at the time I didn’t really know how I did it.

I placed it 1 mm under the top of the rectangle and padded it so the difference wasn’t visible. This is how it looked:

Next, I wanted to add two CAUTION icons on either side of the CAUTION text. I approached this by downloading an SVG file and importing it into FreeCAD as geometry. When I moved the sketch into one of the bodies and padded it, it seemed to cause a glitch in the case cover.

Case cover glitch:

I fixed this by creating a new body for both icons, and they padded correctly. I used the same padding technique as before, and this is what it ended up looking like:

All that was left at this point was adding the "AUTHORIZED USE ONLY" text at the bottom of the cover. After creating the ShapeString, I ran into the same problem as before, specifically the issue of only the first letter getting padded.

Before padding:

Only A getting padded:

I found that the solution was to use the extrude parameter from the Part workbench instead of the pad parameter from the Part Design workbench. This seemed to extrude the text correctly.

After rearranging the text and using the same padding (extruding) technique, I got the finished version for now:

I also did some rethinking about the color of the switch cover because the text wouldn’t be very distinguishable with a blue cover and black text. I thought maybe I could make this one have a yellow base cover (which matches CAUTION) and have the CAUTION text outline, CAUTION icons, and "AUTHORIZED USE ONLY" text in black.