X-mas ball by Lloyd Jenkins

Why I designed x-mas ball. Ever since I was a born, I always was building something although that scratched my itch for creation for a little bit the itch became bigger and bigger, awhile passed and I saved up enough money and got my first 3d printer an ender 3 v2 this opened a whole world of creation I started off printing small trinkets just to watch it work but then I saw problems everywhere no place to put things in the shower or the milk carton keeps dripping and getting all over the counter. I wanted to fix these issues and make routines simpler but alas the thing I have been putting off... learning 3d modeling I tried all the free 3d modeling software's, but things were too hard to learn or easy to learn but very limited and unable to produce complex geometries eventually I learned free cad and produced many geometries and now I have satisfied my prior goals and self and created a large quick inexpensive project that will give somebody in the position that I was a huge sense of accomplishment and pride and a cool pretty light thing to look at.

X-mas ball is designed to be 3d printed using FDM technology on low cost "I3 bed slinger" style "beginner" 3d printers

I designed X-mas ball to be used with low cost outdoor rated RGB lights and whatever filament you have available (PLA is recommended for beginners but will not hold up in harsh weather/climates). No non 3d printed hardware is needed other than some string and the lights and even those are not needed if you would like a center piece the square peg and slot design will let you assemble the piece in more ways than you would think although only the ball shape is shown i do have an assembly video linked down below showing how to assemble it and also will show the final product

Print settings

100 mms

0.3 mm layer height

20% lightning infill

-0.2 mm initial layer horizontal expansion

-0.1 mm hole horizontal expansion

-0.4 horizontal expansion

no supports

z-hop enabled

no adhesion but glue stick recommended on xms-1, xms-2, and all corners

220 c hot end

60 c print bed

3 walls line count (for large pieces) (8 walls for connectors or enough to make them solid)

large pieces print should be positioned diagonally to maximize print volume

each large piece should take around 70g of filament and take 2h 45m

6pc connectors should take around 10min

model works at 70% scale and 180% scale

Link to assembly video here -----------------------------> https://youtu.be/W-dG4rLsdII

If you want to see more complex and higher quality designs, consider donating funding will go to higher quality machines, project materials

and software or even maybe a completely open-source printer somewhat similar to the RepRap project (hint hint).

assembly kits will not be available