3D Printed Spinning Gear Propeller

Hello everybody! I am Alex Back, an upcoming sophomore at Cincinnati Country Day School in Cincinnati, Ohio. I chose to make this as my project because I was interested in designing something with moving gears, as I had never done that before. The entirety of this project was designed in Fusion 360. The propeller was originally supposed to fly off of the dowel, but I did not have enough time to revise my design to make that happen. My theory is that a smaller gear with less teeth and reducing the friction between the gear and the case will make everything spin faster and possibly launch the propeller. At this point the gears spin the propeller but not fast enough to make it fly off. So instead, I decided to glue the propeller onto the dowel so that it only spins. This was also my first time using Fusion 360, so I made many mistakes and learned a lot from this experience.

Supplies needed:

3D Printer

~150g of a filament of your choice

A 5mm diameter dowel rod

2x Nylon Washers

Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks

The STL files listed below

Ultimaker Cura or another slicing software

To start the project, I first learned how to design the gears and the gear rack using this video. To design the case for the gear and gear rack, I used the dimensions of the gear to accurately create a case that would fit both the gear and gear rack. For the final step, I designed the propeller. I expected this to be the most tedious part of the project, but it was surprisingly simple when following this tutorial.

I printed these on a Creality CR-10 3D printer using PLA filament. For all of the parts of the project except for the propeller, I used standard quality (.2mm). For the propeller, I used super quality (.12mm). I learned a tip from this video, where you turn the gear rack onto the side so the curves print more accurately.

To assemble, I first glued the 5mm dowel rod inside the hole in the gear. After that, I added nylon washers to both ends of the gear to reduce friction between the gear and the case. Next, I glued the top of the case on (which needs several layers of hot glue to make clearance for the washers). Then I cut the dowel rod and glued the propeller on top.