3D Printed Chicken Rings
Introduction: 3D Printed Chicken Rings
For years we have had beloved feathery friends in our garden, happily eating kitchen scraps and seeds and giving us eggs in return.
When one of our chickens was continuously breaking out, we gave her a name: <PERSON>. However, with one having a name, the others became jealous and wanted names as well. So we jokingly named the other three <PERSON>, <PERSON> and <PERSON> after the chef who invented volle-au-vent, a typical French-Belgian saucy dish made with chickens.
The need arose to have some identification other than their prisonbreak skills. No need to re-invent the wheel, bird rings are already a thing and are pretty easy to make. We chose to make the rings out of different colours AND have the name embossed on the outer surface of the ring.
Supplies
I chose to design the chicken rings in fusion360 and print them on my FDM 3D printer at home. a ruler always comes in handy. Furthermore a cup for hot water and some tweezers will come in handy later. (skip to the end if that triggered your curiosity)
Step 1: Measure Your Chickens Legs
The question you want to answer is: what size ring will fit the legs without hurting or injuring your poultry, yet will stay on? Measure with a ruler the depth and with of your chicken leg. This does not have to be very accurate as long as you include a generous clearance.
We have some standard ISA brown chickens but every breed will have different sizes of legs so please keep that in mind: Measure twice. I measured that an ellipse of 1 × 2 cm would meet the criteria above.
Step 2: Design the Ring in Fusion360 (part 1)
The following steps will walk you through the fusion360 design process if you want to follow along. I will also provide the F360 files here for you to edit to your hearts desire.
1. Start a sketch, on any plane
2. Draw an ellipse of 10 × 20 mm (Look back at step 2, if you measured different sizes for the legs,
3. use those measurements.
4. Draw a rectangle at the top of the ellipse of about 0.5mm wide. The rectangle should intersect the apex of the ellipse.
5. With the Trim tool (scissors) cut out the line of the ellipse that is inside the rectangle
6. Finish the sketch Now you should have a ellipse with a cut-out.
It would be nice to use the emboss function now, however for some reason this does not work adequately. At least not for me. So here is a workaround.
Step 3: Design the Ring in Fusion360 (part 2)
It would be nice to use the emboss function now, however for some reason this does not work adequately. 737
At least not for me. This might be updated in a future version of F360, therefore I advise you to give it a try. If it does not work here is a workaround:
7. Go to the 'SHEET METAL' tab and select 'Flange'
8. Select the trimmed outline of the ellipse and 'extrude' over a height of 15 mm. Press OK
9. Back in the 'SOLID' tab, click extrude to lengthen one of the edges of our newly formed body with a small distance (0.5mm is sufficient)
10. Again in the 'SHEET METAL' tab under 'MODIFY' click 'Unfold' This function will ask you to select two edges; a stationary and a bend edge. Select the small strip of lengthen ellipse as stationary entity and click the rounded edge of the ellipse as Bend. (click OK)
Now we have a flattened ellipse, a.k.a. a straight body where we can put our text on
Step 4: Design the Ring in Fusion360 (part 3)
Now we have a flattened ellipse, a.k.a. a straight body where we can put our text on:
11. In the 'SOLID' tab create a sketch on the outside of the now flattened ellipse. There is 50% chance to get it right the first time. Or if you have followed along, its the back side of the model. You can always come back to this step and change it.
12. In the 'SKETCH' menu, under 'CREATE' select 'Text' to input a text on the sketch. Type any name or obscene characters you want. You can even change the font if you like. Within this menu it is also advised to try and position and size the text as correctly as possible. (click OK)
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