Olaf Snowman maker (Remix)

thingiverse

My second entry for the #RemixChallenge. My daughter loves Frozen, so naturally, we should have an Olaf snowman maker! Extra Credit Opportunity! Place drops of food coloring into the mold where his nose, eyes, buttons, and arms are for a full color Olaf! Feb 1st, 2018 - Changed the body of the mold to a snowperson shape, which should cut down the volume, which should save material. I also changed the cylinder pegs to half spheres, which should cut down on the chance of them breaking when trying to separate the mold. I haven't test printed it yet, but I'll upload photos when I do. Print Settings Rafts: Doesn't Matter Supports: No Resolution: 0.1mm or better Notes: Should print with 0.1mm layer height or better to allow a high level of detail to appear! I printed the 'box' one in the picture on a MakerBot Mini, and it's just short of 100mm tall. Nice level of detail, but the arms/hands don't look like they'll come out well on a snowman. Would definitely scale up for a usable one! I scaled this up and I don't believe the arms will come out well either way. Just use sticks! How I Designed This Subtracting and separating with TinkerCAD and Slic3r! When I saw the snowman maker on the #RemixChallenge collection and I knew I had to remix Olaf. I found an Olaf mold by rocketboy already on thingiverse, but I also want to show the steps I used to create this snowman maker, in case someone else wants to learn. Step 1 - Check the Model First thing I did was find a model of Olaf I thought would work well. embeddedjunkie's model look like it would work well if split right down the middle, so I picked that one. By coincidence, it's the same model the rocketboy used to make his mold! I imported the .stl of embeddedjunkie's Olaf into TinkerCAD to see if any mesh errors come up. Nothing major appeared! I'm a happy snowman! Step 2 - The Block Second thing I did was I raised the model 5mm off the floor of the workspace, this part is important so that the feet of the model don't stick out of the bottom of the snowman maker! Then I added a simple cube to my workspace which would become the snowman maker. Don't forget to apply the 'hole' setting to the Olaf model, that way the model gets 'removed' from our cube! I stretched the X and Y axis of the cube to make sure it would extend over all the details by at least 5mm, that way there wouldn't be any holes extending from where the snow goes and the outside of the snowman maker. This is also why we raised the model 5mm at the beginning! Use the picture below as a reference. Notice that the cube extends at least 5mm farther than any features. Step 3 - Paper Cut Third thing I did was create another cube which I stretched as wide as my snowman maker was, and as tall as the snowman maker was. Then I made it only 0.1mm thick. Imagine this is a piece a paper, and it represents the 'cut' that will split our model into two pieces! Position the 'paper' so that it splits the model into as equal parts as you can get. Use the picture below as a reference. The yellow 'paper' piece splits the model in half! Step 4 - 'The Trick' There has to be a trick, if you want these all grouped together nicely. First, select the Olaf model and make him about 10mm taller(stretch him 10mm taller along the Z axis). Then make the snowman maker(the red cube) 5mm shorter than the Olaf model. Then select the Olaf model and shrink him back down to original size(10mm shorter along the Z axis). The Olaf model should still be selected, even though it's now hidden inside the red cube. Make sure that you Shift-Click to select the red cube along with the Olaf model that should already be selected, and group them together. This trick should 'remove' the OIaf model from the inside of the red cube. Step 5 - Cut in Half Now it should look like you have a big red cube with 'paper' piece slicing through the middle. Selected the 'paper' piece and make it a 'hole.' Select the 'paper' hole and the red cube and group them together. This effectively cuts your model in half. Use the picture below as a reference. Snowman Maker after the 'paper' hole grouping. Step 6 - Separation TinkerCAD won't easily seperate these two pieces, but Slic3r will! So export your file from TinkerCAD and open it up in Slic3r! For reference, I'm running version 1.2.9 of Slic3r. Once you have it open in Slic3r, hit the 'Split' button in the toolbar and BAM! you've got both sides split. All you have to do now is rotate them so the relief is facing up and print! Do the splits!