Friendly (and sleepy) Articulated Cat by Rollerpaw

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

I love the joint design in Isaiah 's friendly slug but unfortunately I'm afraid of slugs. So I created a cat using (what I think is) his joint design, since I have always wanted an articulated kitty that I could keep on my desk and give a pat whenever I'm bored.
I also used the pawn from my Chess Cats (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4704681), but somehow I can only add one source file so I didn't include that in the list.
The loose joint problem in V1 is fixed in V2!! I redid the joint design instead of simply decreasing the gap, so that the flexibility of the kitty were almost not affected at all. I have printed the new version and haven't yet had any of the joints coming off. So I would say that this is no longer a work-in-progress. You can go print your kitty now!
Print settings (important!)
Layer height: 0.1mm
Print speed: 30mm/sec max (or even slower if you have time to wait, to reduce stringing problem)
Print temperature: you can lower the temperature a bit (180 or 190 C), also to reduce stringing problem
NO support!!
Post printing (also important!)
When the print is finished, if it's stuck pretty tightly on the print bed, better not try to break it off as one piece, but carefully loosen the moving parts one by one. Start from the tip of the tail and the head, and slowly work your way towards the big butt in the middle. When each part is lifted off from the print bed, it should still be connected to the next part.
The gap tolerances are relatively small compared to the other articulated animals, so unless your printer is very neat and clean, you may need to work on the joints a little bit to make them moving smoothly. If it's not moving, try sliding a knife in between the gap to cut the strings off, and carefully rotate it until it's loose.
(Print recommendations adapted from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4727448 with my own experience)