Vase Mode Steampunk Lighthouse (Patreon)

Hey there, wonderful people!

How complicated can we get, and still have a valid vase mode design that can be printed with one single unbroken perimeter?  Well, evidently we can go nuts and get quite complicated indeed!  This design was sparked by wondering if I could put a staircase with handrail on the outside of a tower in vase mode, but everything is better in steampunk style, so that's where we ended up!

The trickiest thing in all this is actually the angles - I generally don't like anything steeper - or shallower - than forty-five degrees for vase mode, so everything needs to go steadily upwards and not veer at any point towards horizontal.

One thing about texture and detail, though - the line width of the print has an impact on how all that detail works when sliced.  If a feature is thin enough that the two walls will meet, the slicer may omit the rest of the perimeter after that meeting point, and effectively truncate part of that layer.  I've designed for 0.4mm line width, and corrected a few features that succumbed to that problem, but you might find that some things magically disappear if sliced with a broader nozzle or line width (like those outer fins in the upper windows).  It's ultimately a compromise, though, striking a balance between fineness of detail and line width compatibility.

Print Description

This is a vase mode model, so set your slicer accordingly!

That said, this is a closed form, so you can certainly just print it in regular mode if you want it to be a much stronger print :)

Print Dimensions

By default, the Steampunk Lighthouse occupies 107mm c 122mm on the print bed and is 214mm tall, but may be scaled up or down.

Supports Needed?

Not at all!  Designed for straightforward printing!

Scalability

It's vase mode, so scaling will be just fine!  Scaling down will obviously see a reduction in detail, though, especially the bits mentioned above.

Print Orientation

The Steampunk Lighthouse prints right-way-up.

File Location

You'll find this one at at 531 Vase Mode Steampunk Lighthouse

Link to dropbox post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/31697592

Further Thoughts

It did pretty well at 50%!  I kept line width the same, and really only lost those aforementioned fins at at the windows.  Printers and slicers really are pretty good at this stuff!

Happy printing!

xoxo

Sven.