Manual GIF Display Unit (Zoetrope)

thingiverse

LEARN about one of the first forms of animation and why it deserved its early death! AMAZE your friends with your poor choice of plastic use! WONDER why it seemed like a fun project to design in the first place! (No wait, that last one only applies to me.) Seriously. This is a working Zoetrope. For some reason, the ancients really got off on these things. After watching a repeating 1 second animation for more than 1 second, you'll start to understand how starved for amusement they must have been in the 1880s. I've included some antique animations I gathered, cleaned, and sized to fit the medium version. To assemble you need to print the following pieces: Barrel upper, Barrel lower, Housing inner, Housing outer, Gear, Crank axle, Crank handle, Axle strap x 2, to hold the crank axle in place. Just tap them in with a hammer. Wheel x 4 (or skip these, if printing a small version, doesn't much matter) and Wheel axle x 4 (or skip these, if printing a small version, doesn't much matter). You will also need: 4 screws, M3 size, 10mm or less, to hold housing outer and inner together. 2 screws, M3 size, 5mm, to hold crank handle on crank axle. Cyanoacrylate glue to glue the gear to the crank axle, the barrel top and bottom together, the wheel axles to the wheels. Be sure to glue the wheel axles off center (most of the axle to one side of the wheel) to match the thickness of the axle holders. Otherwise the housing outer won't fit over them. Sand all the rotating surfaces before you put it together. Print out some strips, put them in the barrel (note the nifty posts to hold it in place!), and spin away. The medium version is sized for a strip printable on 11 inches of paper (standard US size), while the large version is sized for a strip twice that length. Keep in mind when deciding which to print. https://youtu.be/XwXohYdVC-4 https://youtu.be/6a2Ebe3oBe0 https://youtu.be/xulG1SR5sZA As with many previous projects, I owe a big Danke Schoen to Dr. Jörg Janssen for his excellent Getrieb.scad program that generated the gears. Look for it on Thingiverse!