2 Weeks ago I noticed MyMiniFactory had published a contest to design a mechanical object in Tinkercad. For quite some time I have been 3D printing but mostly just models I found on the internet. I had already played around a bit with Fusion 360, however 3d modelling was still fairly new for me. So I saw this as an opportunity to get to know Tinkercad and model/print more of my own designs.
The contraints of the contest was that the object had to be something mechanical. This is still quite broad so I added some of my own constraints:
- It had to be fully 3D printable! When I find 3D printing projects on the internet that use other materials (f.e. bearrings, rods, screws, …) there is always just one of those things you do not have lying around the house which always bums me out :p
- The least amount of support material needed. Support material often deterioates the surface above/underneath and is just wasted material. So with this design I wanted to minimize the amount of support that was needed.
- Jointed with being fully 3D printable it should fit most common 3D print build volumes so (max build volume of around 200 mm x 200 mm x 200 mm ) so that it is accesible to most people
- Minimize the amount of glue that was needed to assemble the design. I tried to make it as much snap-fit as possible but some improvement in that area can still be done.
So with the objective and these guidelines in mind I started researching for what I wanted to make. Quite soon I knew I wanted to make something with water. I had seen some little indoor fountains that seemed a lot of fun. All of them used some kind of electrical pump to get the water to a certain height. I wanted to replace this with a mechanical pump and let the water flow back down through different paths with different interesting objects on them.
I first design a pump system that could be operated by a hand crank and that worked similar to the electrical ones.
After testing this out I noticed I could not get enough lift with this design. This was probably due to 2 factors (max vertical lift I got was +- 3cm):
- The water tightness of the design
- The speed I could rotate the water wheel inside the pump
With some alterations to this design (f.e. using different set of gears to increase the speed) it might be possible to get this to work but I’m still hesitant that a hand crank can deliver the speed needed for this design.
Back to the drawing board!
After some research I came across a picture of an old water wheel that the Persians use to lift water vertically.
This design immediatly appealed to me for it’s simple but effective mechanical construction and overall aesthetics. So I decided to use this idea to lift my water to a sufficient height.
The front of the water wheel features first a bucket that catches the water at the top. From there it goes to a water operated gear. After this gear the water get’s split in 2 different ways. 1 Side has a little waterfall with 2 different sides. The other side has a spiralling water staircase.
This was the final design after a lot of iterations :-). I added 10 buckets to the wheel that lift the water +- 18 cm. The white base is printed as a solid and holds the water wheel.
The red hand crank rotates the first gear which set’s the whole piece in motion.
I had a blast designing this and I am sure going to design a lot more stuff that I will share here!
At first, I had to get used to the way of working withing Tinkercad and coming from (a very limited) Fusion 360 background I was a bit unsure of learning a new tool. But I have to say that I was really surprised with how fast you get accustomed to the controls and you are able to design fairly complicated designs. I would love to have some more chamfer or fillet options but overall Tinkercad is a very powerfull tool!
An overview of the different components
Overall I think the design worked out quite well. All parts can be 3D printed and I only need support for the spiral staircase. Most of the objects can be snapped together (also determined by your printer tolerances) but some objects require glue.
The overall design is modular so that other water guides, water gears or anything to guide or play with the water can be added.
And of course, the final result!
Ofcourse all of this needed a lot of iterations to get right. Especiallysince this was my first own design I still had to learn the needed tolerances and other factors that come into play when designing 3D printed stuff
Some improvements can be made but overall I’m very happy with the result!
If you have any comments or remarks, let me know! I’m thinking of an improved/next version and to add different water elements aswell!
AG3D 