Le Petit Prince Christmas Pyramid (Weihnachtspyramide)

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

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 "Christmaspyramid"?
A Christmaspyramid or "Weihnachtspyramide" is an old decor piece from Germany: circular paterned candles create heat, which spins the propeller on top. The propeller is connected to one or more plates, on those you can find many different wooden figures.
What do I need?
You need one 608 bearing, measuring 7 mm (thickness) by 8 mm (ID) by 22 mm (OD). That is a classic skateboard bearing. I recommend buying a new bearing that is turning really well (ABEC 9 to 11). You also need 9 classical tealight candles (around 40 mm in diameter). Instructions for building: video above.
You find the number of prints for each parts in the name of the part.
You can print the whole set without support in case you have good bridging settings. If not you just need one support block at the end of the long rod.
CAUTION! Because this is all plastic, you should turn the candles off everytime you have used the pyramid. PLA has a low melting point. I made the design as save 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 to not use any glue at all. In some sections it can be good to permanently use it. I designed the connections to press fit. It may happen that you have to use a hobby knife to adjust these fits depending on your layer height or your printer in general.
Design process
In total it took almost three weeks of sketching and testing the whole model. At first I tried to use two bearings for more stability but that didnt work because of the inaccuracy of my printer: the long rod in the middle is not that straight to ensure a smooth and friction free spinning. For this case the candles do not create enough flow to spin the model. The second bearing would have been in the baseplate.
For snapfitting connectors I went with .2 and .25 mm clearance and hemispheres (d= 2 mm) for holding everything in place.
Because I have no experience using 3D modelling programs like Blender, Sculptris and Meshmixer I went with finished designs and implemented them into Fusion 360. I had to modify them quite a lot but I think using finished designs saved me a lot of time.
Because I had no idea how much the whole thing would weight I printed very small sections of my design to test the fit to find the clearances. In past designs I did not care about these and used some hot glue to make it fit. Thinking more about my design and printing these sections for testing was quite new but it worked really well! Although 3Dprinting is a method for rapid prototyping you should think about sustainability and test your design before printing. That is 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 mesh into a BRep (solid body) and bring this new component into your "main design".
-toggle object visebilties by pressing "ctrl" and a number from 4 to 7.
-align components to make them easier to print using the "align" command.
Background story:
As a child I had a kind of obsession with these christmas pyramids. I had more fun looking at these than anything else! :D I read the book in my childhood and came back to it when i was 19-20. I am really glad that I had that relaxed childhood. Sometimes I want to return to that time, so that is why I made the pyramid spin counterclockwise. In case you want to use your own figures I have made a turntable with no connectors. YMost of the pyramids I have seen spin clockwise. You can make your pyramid spin clockwise by simply mirroring the turntable_cloud and _body_plane files.
Remixed models:
ww.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