Thingiverse
Diving Ring (Experimental) by dgsharp
by Thingiverse
Last crawled date: 5 years, 4 months ago
Experimental diving rings for my daughter to use in the pool. There is an air pocket in one side, allowing the rings to rest upright at the bottom of the pool, making them easy to grab.
NOTE! This is experimental. It would obviously be easiest to print something hollow and add a weight (maybe drop it in while printing, or stick it on afterwards, but I wanted to try having it just work right out of the printer. It turns out that the margins of proper buoyancy are fairly slim when dealing with PLA, so very small differences in printer settings can make a big difference and throw off the buoyancy, causing it to "fail" by either sinking flat to the bottom or floating on the top.
There are 4 models, numbered 1-4. They go from most buoyant to least buoyant. ABS will not work without significant changes as it is very close to the density of water, making the margins very slim or even negative if there is any trapped air in the print. I wish this were more predictable, do not be surprised if you end up with a couple of rings that "fail" (float or sink flat).
NOTE! This is experimental. It would obviously be easiest to print something hollow and add a weight (maybe drop it in while printing, or stick it on afterwards, but I wanted to try having it just work right out of the printer. It turns out that the margins of proper buoyancy are fairly slim when dealing with PLA, so very small differences in printer settings can make a big difference and throw off the buoyancy, causing it to "fail" by either sinking flat to the bottom or floating on the top.
There are 4 models, numbered 1-4. They go from most buoyant to least buoyant. ABS will not work without significant changes as it is very close to the density of water, making the margins very slim or even negative if there is any trapped air in the print. I wish this were more predictable, do not be surprised if you end up with a couple of rings that "fail" (float or sink flat).