Bouncing Ball Experiments

thingiverse

The spherical feline plaything - thing:1704548 - exhibited remarkable resilience when printed using PLA and left hollow. It bounced well on hard surfaces, but its fragility made it prone to breakage. Two sturdier balls, consisting of eight identical sections, were designed to address this issue. One features a distorted hexagon held in place by four rods, while the other boasts a central point connected to six rods. These robust orbs were printed using PLA and GP3D "FLEX" filaments, with bouncing comparisons made between the two materials. The OpenSCAD code used for these designs is included below. Print Settings: Printer Brand: MakerBot Printer Model: MakerBot Replicator (5th Generation) Rafts: Yes Supports: No Resolution: 0.2 mm Infill: 25% Notes: The following post suggests using GP3D flexible filament with a PLA raft, which can be easily achieved with a smart extruder + and works flawlessly. By increasing the raft margin to 8 mm and switching from PLA to GP3D FLEX when the raft is about half constructed, a successful print can be obtained. Results: These sturdier balls, printed using PLA, are remarkably rigid and bounce on hard surfaces with a loud noise. In contrast, those printed with GP3D FLEX bounce well but not significantly better than their PLA counterparts. However, they produce minimal noise and exhibit a similar bounce to that of a rubber ball. The feline plaything - thing:1704548 - was printed using GP3D FLEX, resulting in an easily distorted print that is less fragile than its PLA counterpart and still bounceable to some degree. The hexagon-patterned ball proves to be the best bouncer.