A 3D Printed Animated Valentine Heart for My Valentine!
Introduction: A 3D Printed Animated Valentine Heart for My Valentine!
A Valentine Heart for my Valentine, with a twist!
This animated twisting heart is constructed from eighteen heart slices. The motor and gear system is designed to rotate the top slice 180 degrees while holding the bottom slice stationary, then hold the top slice stationary while rotating the bottom slice 180 degrees.
To rotate the inner slices (between the top and bottom) the bottom and inner slices contain small metal pins and the inner and top slices contain slots. Each pin fits into the slot in the slice above it, and each slot is 10 degrees in arc length. When the top turns 10 degrees, its slot comes in contact with the pin in the slice below and that slice begins to rotate, and when the slice below rotates 10 degrees, the pin in the slice below it begins to rotate. This process continues down the slices until the top rotates 180 degrees at which point the bottom begins to rotate to put the heart back together.
The only contact between each slice must be the pins in the slots, thus careful 3D printing (no warping) and assembly (bearings completely flush with the bottom of each slice) are required to successfully 3D print and assemble this model.
As usual I probably forgot a file or two or who knows what else, so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to comment as I do make plenty of mistakes.
Designed using Autodesk Fusion 360, sliced using Ultimaker Cura 4.8.0, and 3D printed in PLA on Ultimaker S5s.
Supplies
* Soldering iron and solder.
* Light machine oil to lubricate the gears and axles.
* Thick cyanoacrylate glue.
Step 1: Parts.
I acquired the following parts:
* One 2AAA battery back with switch.
* Two AAA batteries.
* One 300RPM 6VDC N20 gear motor.
* Sixteen flange bearings (F6700ZZ 10 x 15 x 4mm flange bearing)
* One 36" length of 2mm diameter music wire.
I 3D printed all parts at .1mm layer height with 20% infill. I 3D printed 2 "Bolt, Plate.stl", 15 "Spacer.stl" and one each of the remaining parts.
This mechanism is a high precision print and assembly using at times very small precision 3D printed parts in confined spaces with highly precise alignment. I 3D printed all parts using the Ultimaker Cura 4.8.0 "Engineering Profile" on my Ultimaker S5s, which provides a highly accurate tolerance requiring minimal if any trimming, filing, drilling or sanding. However, prior to assembly, I still test fitted and trimmed, filed, drilled, sanded, etc. 654
all parts as necessary for smooth movement of moving surfaces, and tight fit for non moving surfaces. Depending on your slicer, printer, printer settings and the colors you chose, more or less trimming, filing, drilling and/or sanding may be required to successfully recreate this model. I carefully filed all edges that contacted the build plate to make absolutely certain that all build plate "ooze" is removed and that all edges are smooth using small jewelers files and plenty of patience to perform this step.
This mechanism also uses threaded assembly, so I used a tap and die set (8mm by 1.25) as required for thread cleaning.
Step 2: Pins.
The model uses seventeen small metal pins to create the heart twisting motion. I made these pins from a 32" length of 2mm diameter music wire. To create a pin, I performed the following steps:
* Rounded off one end of the music wire using a bench grinder (a handheld rotary tool or file works just as well).
* Cut the pin to 8mm in length on a small cut off saw (a handheld rotary tool or fine hobby saw works just as well). Note I used a brass stop block positioned 8mm from the blade to obtain a repeatable cut off length.
* Filed the cut end smooth and flat.
* Repeated this process for the remaining sixteen pins.
Step 3: Assembling the Heart Slices
The heart is created from eighteen slices, sixteen of those being the "inner slices" ("Slice02.stl" through "Slice17.stl). Each of inner slice requires one flange bearing and one pin. To assemble an inner slice, I performed the following steps:
* Pressed one bearing into the bottom side of a slice, non-flanged end first, until is was flush with the bottom of the slice. 632