PrintrBot Mini

thingiverse

My 5-year-old daughter has been watching me 3D print for most of her life, so when she asked if her dolls could have a 3D printer of their own, I was not surprised. I initially intended to just print one of the little 3D printer keychains I've seen here on Thingiverse, but ultimately decided to create something more personal. With nothing more than a ruler and an evening in OpenSCAD, I created the PrintrBot Mini. The PB Mini is a roughly 1/5th scale model of the PrintrBot Simple Metal, which seemed like the perfect fit for her large Barbie and Ken dolls. I didn't include detailed extruder components at this scale, but made sure to show the hotend and autolevel sensor, as these are the most obvious visual features (and the most colorful). Update 12/2/16: Move the hotend and sensor to the edge of the arm to reduce overhangs. Printing Notes: Base: This is a simple print; I switched from black to silver mid-print to achieve a two-tone effect, but you can easily paint the "tower" to get a similar look. Arm: The arm prints without support, although the overhang over the hotend and sensor might be too much for some machines. All the detail painting is required on this piece; you can skip it if you prefer, but I think it's worth doing. Bed: This is just a rectangle; either paint it or print it in a different color than the base. The blue PLA from PrintrBot matches 3M painters tape perfectly, so it worked well for me. Issues: The SCAD file is messy; I wanted to make it parametric so you could render it at any scale, but it's not very elegant. I was hoping to do something more impressive with the fan, but it ended up being a flat panel. You can paint some detail on the outside if you want, but any printed effect would get lost at this scale. In terms of usability, the hole in the arm to accept the tower is definitely too small, and I had to use a file to widen it before the arm would fit smoothly.