Planetary Kaleidocycle! (Patreon)
Content
I just had to make another one of these things, because they're just so cool! But this time, it's an assembly. Okay, it's an assembly of print-in-place gears :P You'll recognise this basic structure from the experiment I posted recently, but now the "hinges" move by rotating a planetary gear. I love those things, they're just so much fun. Actually, I have a box experiment that uses that kind of gear sitting there waiting to be printed... but I digress!
So! You'll need to print:
* 6 body pieces
* 12 bolts.
The bolts thread in from either side, and hold the middle gear to the arms of the adjacent body. Those multiple colours in my photos are simply a filament change, not some fancy multiple extrusion thing.
This is a much easier print than the other kaleidocycle with its crazy angles and silly bed adhesion. This one has no such silliness. It does have some pretty tight tolerances on those gears, though. I'd recommend printing one body as a test, and making sure you can get the gears moving. Mine all took a little persuasion to begin rotating, and I had to make sure there was no debris in the way, but once they were moving, they were great.
I made sure to test this one on my most poorly-calibrated printer, and it worked just fine, so I have high hopes that it'll be reasonably printable for everyone. That said, if anyone has any big issues getting the body gears going, let me know, and I can always try increasing the tolerances, but that will of course make things looser, too.
Meanwhile, I have some boxes to print and a video to edit...
Enjoy!
(Creative Printer supporters, you'll find this model on Dropbox already, under Planetary Kaleidoycle)