Darth Vader lightsaber keychain (collapsible blade)

thingiverse

I made some adjustments to remix the Collapsing Sith Lightsaber (Removable Blade) by 3DPRINTINGWORLD. The original design was quite large, so I decided to scale it down to make a keychain. To do this, I removed some blades, leaving only three. To ensure that the blades wouldn't slip forward over each other, I added closures to the back ends of each blade. When the lightsaber was pointed downwards, the blades would automatically extend, but this caused problems when printing it at an angle. To solve this issue, I shortened the blades slightly and created a chamber to glue in some magnets or steel sheets. I also added a pushbutton at the back to easily release the magnets. Scaling down the design was challenging due to gap tolerances. I ended up printing the blades twice, making adjustments each time until it worked for me. This may not be true for every printer, as gap tolerances can vary greatly. When I printed the edited version with no adjustments, everything worked perfectly. However, my first attempt failed because the blades simply slid out. To fix this issue, I heated the short end of one blade and pushed it into the other while the plastic was still soft. I then rolled my fingers on the soft plastic to make the closure small enough not to let the inner blade out. The gap between the blades was only slightly too large, but hopefully, this method will work for others as well. I printed my lightsaber at 0.2mm layer height and everything came out without supports, except for the smallest blade closing cap. This cap has a small rim that I added supports to. The lightsaber and blades are printed standing up.