Le Petit Prince Christmas Pyramid (Weihnachtspyramide)

thingiverse

This is a "Little Prince" themed Christmas pyramid. Here's the pyramid in action and building instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glVsnl6bkXQ&t=1s What is a "Christmas pyramid"? A Christmas pyramid or "Weihnachtspyramide" is an old German decor piece: circular-patterned candles create heat, which spins the propeller on top. The propeller is connected to one or more plates, featuring many different wooden figures. What do I need? You'll need one 608 bearing, measuring 7 mm (thickness) by 8 mm (ID) by 22 mm (OD). This is a classic skateboard bearing. I recommend buying a new bearing that turns really well (ABEC 9 to 11). You'll also need nine classical tealight candles (around 40 mm in diameter). Instructions for building: watch the video above. You can find the number of prints for each part in the name of the part. You can print the whole set without support if you have good bridging settings. If not, just use one support block at the end of the long rod. CAUTION! Because this is all plastic, turn off the candles every time you've used the pyramid. PLA has a low melting point. I made the design as safe as possible. The structure won't get hot if you have a good turning bearing and exact manufactured parts. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. The set is designed not to use any glue at all. In some sections, it can be beneficial to use it permanently. I designed the connections to press fit. It may happen that you need to use a hobby knife to adjust these fits depending on your layer height or printer. Design process It took almost three weeks of sketching and testing the whole model. At first, I tried using two bearings for more stability but that didn't work because of my printer's inaccuracy: the long rod in the middle isn't straight enough to ensure a smooth and friction-free spinning. For this case, the candles don't create enough flow to spin the model. The second bearing would have been in the baseplate. For snapfitting connectors, I used .2 and .25 mm clearance and hemispheres (d = 2 mm) for holding everything in place. Because I'm not experienced with 3D modeling programs like Blender, Sculptris, or Meshmixer, I went with finished designs and implemented them into Fusion 360. I had to modify them quite a lot but think using finished designs saved me a lot of time. Because I had no idea how much the whole thing would weigh, I printed small sections of my design to test the fit to find the clearances. In past designs, I didn't care about these and used hot glue to make it fit. Thinking more about my design and printing these sections for testing was quite new but worked really well! Although 3D printing is a method for rapid prototyping, you should think about sustainability and test your design before printing. That's one of the things I learned by doing this project. I learned some gimmicks in Fusion: * Bringing .stl files into BRep without screwing up your whole design history: You can open a new project in Fusion and convert your .stl from a model to a part. Then, use the "Insert" menu to bring it into your main assembly. * Merging parts: If you have multiple parts with the same geometry but different orientations, you can merge them together by selecting both parts and using the "Merge Parts" tool. Background story As a child, I had an obsession with these Christmas pyramids. I had more fun looking at these than anything else! I read the book in my childhood and came back to it when I was 19-20. I'm really glad that I had that relaxed childhood. Sometimes, I want to return to that time, so that's why I made the pyramid spin counterclockwise. In case you want to use your own figures, I've made a turntable with no connectors. Most of the pyramids I've seen spin clockwise. You can make your pyramid spin clockwise by simply mirroring the turntable_cloud and _body_plane files. Remixed models: * thingiverse.com/thing:934033 * thingiverse.com/thing:2162616 * thingiverse.com/thing:2755289 * thingiverse.com/thing:1147748 * thingiverse.com/thing:3948024 * thingiverse.com/thing:2663491 * myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-the-little-prince-drawing-number-two-4706 * myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-plane-from-the-little-prince-104171 * myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-gift-box-container-80133 * myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-christmas-tree-earrings-charm-multi-colour-or-one-colour-78708