Mechanical Planetarium - Tuned
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This is an optimized version of the "Mechanical Planetarium" model by Zippitybamba.
I printed a few parts of the original model on my Prusa I3 MK3S, and I wasn't satisfied with how they fit. This sent me down a rabbit hole of refactoring and tuning the file until I could print it with insanely low tolerances of about 0.12mm on average.
The original model is truly excellent and deserves to be on the main page for a long time. I put in a lot of time tuning this, so I thought I should share what I've done.
A quick summary of edits:
- Combined the base and upper mechanism into one file.
- Added toggles for rendering each object.
- Refactored source for ease of reading and editing.
- Switched to the English fork of "Getriebe.scad" named "Gears.scad". Translated by Chris Spencer. https://github.com/chrisspen/gears
- Added several customizer sliders to:
- Compensate for printer Z thickness.
- Control spacing for meshing of the gears in the base.
- SCALING! The model is scalable between 50-150% on the X and Y axes only. Object Z heights are controlled separately. Tolerances are corrected so they don't change as you adjust the overall scale. (Scaling to 90% will make it fit on a Prusa Mini)
- Adjusted the length of the Venus planet arm (by 1mm) so the peg doesn't collide with the idler wheel above it.
- Tightened everything up so it could be printed on a well calibrated machine with very minimal post-processing. I only needed to smooth out bits on the…
