Yep, this is yet another variation on my Christmas Balls with Integrated Stems. You can't keep a good designer down. When I finished designing this, I was so excited I didn't wait for the prototype to finish printing before I published it. It's done now and I love it. Give it a try. It's relatively easy to print.
Not for commercial use. Please see license agreement.
RESIZING This ornament should scale up well, but I'm not sure how much smaller you could print it using a consumer FDM printer. Using a resin printer, you could probably print it much smaller.
PRINT TIME About 6 hours
PRINT SETTINGS The trickiest parts to print is the top of the stems. Using FDM, if you don't temp, speed, flow, and cooling right, the thin parts of the stem will melt as you print. Thinner walls help. If that's not enough, try increasing the layer height.
Thickness
- Layer thickness: .15 mm
- Wall thickness: 0.4 – 0.8 mm.
I had the best results using Cura setting the default width to 0.4 mm and adding custom settings for the main ball that printed it 0.8 mm thick. You can do this by adding a support blocker to the bottom and giving it custom settings of 0.4 mm. Cura adds the two and prints the area within the blocker at 0.8 mm.
Infill These do not need any infill. JUST DON'T DO IT.
Speed
- Outer Wall: 35 mm/sec
- Inner Wall: 40 mm/sec
- Travel Speed: 60 mm/sec
Build Plate Adhesion I used a brim. With the supports, you shouldn't need a raft.
Supports You will probably need supports for both bed adhesion and the overhang on the first few layers. You shouldn't need supports for the loop at the top. Adding them would just increase the chances the supports broke and caused the print to fail. If you get supports inside the ball, just add a support blocker.
- Support Structure: Normal
- Support Placement: Touching Buildplate
- Support Overhang Angle: 60 Degrees