Flames Windchime/Mobile (3D Printed Tinkercad Project)

So if you've come across my instructables before you might've noticed I've been making a lot of tiny, intricate things lately!

Well, I felt like a change so thought I'd try something bigger and bolder for this one!

My original inspiration was a windchime - I've always loved them so when I was trying to think of something colourful and pretty to make, it was one of the first things to spring to mind - if you've ever hit 2 pieces of plastic together though, you're probably aware that it doesn't sound quite as pretty and twinkly as a windchime so I figured this would need to be something that was more focused on looks than sound - almost more like a mobile!

One of the great things about plastic as a material is it's very light so I figured I could take advantage of that and make something that would move in the wind! I experimented with a few shapes and settled on this!

When the wind blows, the flames and smoke flutter and spin - like flickering flames!

In the first 3 steps I'll show you how I made the design in Tinkercad - I'll be including the stls though so feel free to just download them from each step and jump ahead to step 4 if you prefer!

• Tinkercad (if you're making your own design or want to modify mine)
• 3D Printer

• Filaments - I used:
  • Filamentive clear PETG for the disk the flames hang from
  • Filamentive white PLA for the flames and smoke
  • Stronghero sliver PLA for the smoke
  • eSun PLA+ in red and orange for the flames

I used filament changes to achieve the multicoloured effect and this is the technique I'll explain in the instructions - if you prefer you could just print in one colour and paint though!

• Fishing Line/String
• Glue - anything that can stick plastic to plastic (I used superglue)

My stl is available below for those who don't want to make their own and here's a link to my TinkerCAD project too! :)

First thing to do is create the flame pieces:

• Sign into Tinkercad and start a new project

• Tinkercad doesn't have a flame shaped piece in the basic shapes but here's a neat trick for creating those odd shapes:
  • Start by adding a ring to the workplane (it seems weird but trust the process!)
  • Now we're going to use the tool shown in the first pic above to change the shape of the ring
  • Move the slider at the top down to to lowest setting and then create your flame shape by moving the squares around - the pic shows a before and after for the way I made mine but feel free to play around with it, it's a neat tool!

From this point on, we'll be working through steps 1-7 as shown in the 2nd pic above

1. Once you've adjusted the shape of the ring, you should have something that looks like pic 1!
2. Using square holes as shown in pic 2, cut away most of what is left of the 'ring' until you have a flat, flame shaped piece
3. This should now look like pic 3
4. Now cut the middle out of the piece by duplicating it, making the duplicate a hole then resizing and aligning it so it fits in the middle as shown in pic 4
5. Group the flame and the hole and it should now look like pic 5
6. Now you'll need 2 more duplicates of the piece you just created
   • Resize your 3 flame pieces so you have what's shown in pic 6
     • Red is 100x40x2.4mm
     • Orange is 70x30.1.6mm
     • White is 50x20x.8mm
7. Now align them all and group them as shown in pic 7!

The flame is now ready to be exported as an stl, ready to be printed later!

If your flame shape is not symmetrical then you'll need to export a mirrored version of it as well as the original - you can mirror a shape by just pressing your 'm' key in TinkerCAD!

Next we need some smoke!

Here's my project again in case you'd rather just make changes to that and stls are again available below!

Still in Tinkercad, we'll create the smoke using several cylinder shapes

We're going to work our way through steps 1-5 as shown in the diagram above :)

1. Add 3 cylinder shapes and arrange them as shown in pic 1 -
   • My cylinders here are all 20x55x0.8mm - the 0.8mm height is important but feel free to play around with everything else!
2. Next add 3 cylindrical holes and arrange them as shown in pic 2
   • My circles here were just measured and placed by eye so do whatever looks best to you but mine were:
     • Top: 25x45mm
     • Mid: 45x30mm
     • Bottom: 45x55mm
3. Now select all 3 cylinders and all 3 holes and group everything! It should now look like pic 3
4. Next, make a duplicate of the shape you've created and scale it down - I made mine 15x70mm but make sure you make it 1.2mm tall then place it so it overlaps with your original shape as shown in pic 4
5. Now group the 2 shapes
   • As it's not symmetrical, you'll need a mirrored version of the smoke shape too - just make a copy and hit the 'm' key on your keyboard to pull up the mirror tool!

You now have your smoke shape ready to export for printing!

I'm not sure what the technical term is for this piece if there is one but it's the disk it all hangs from so we'll go with 'hanging disk'!

This is the final piece you need to make before we can start printing!

As with the others, my stl is available below so help yourself to that and here's my TinkerCAD project as well :)

• Start by creating a ring shape by using a cylindrical hole to cut the centre out of a cylinder shape
  • You'll need 3 rings that fit inside each other as shown in pic 1 - these are all 10mm in height then:
    • My largest ring is 150x150mm
    • middle ring is 120x120mm
    • smallest ring is 90x90mm
• I'm now going to use 16 10x10x20mm box shapes to join the 3 rings together - you can place as many or as few of these as you like - you should aim for something along the lines of pic 2
• Next, add some holes to hang your flames from - I used 4mm cylindrical holes and placed 8 in the outer and middle rings and 6 on the inner ring but feel free to place more or less depending on how many pieces you want to hang from it :) It should look something like pic 3 now
• Once you're happy with the placement of everything, group all of the pieces together and you should now have something like pic 4

This is now ready to be exported as an stl and printed!!

It's time to start printing!

I won't be giving you settings or Gcode as there's no guarantee it'll work with your printer and it could even cause some damage so I like to steer clear of doing that. I will give a few general tips though!

• All of these pieces should print with no need for supports/rafts/brims etc.
• If you want to hang this outdoors, I recommend using PETG as it's a little hardier than PLA so will last longer
• I'd recommend printing the flames and smoke at 100% infill - it just gives them a little extra weight so they hang more nicely and don't tangle so easily.

To achieve the multicolour effect you have a couple of options - I'll be using filament changes and will show you how to do this in PrusaSlicer - you can do this in most slicers however the process will vary a little.
You can, of course print in one colour and then paint or colour with markers if you prefer.

For the flames:

• We will need to set 2 filament changes as shown in the screenshot above - the first should happen at 1mm layer height and the 2nd at 1.8mm
• Depending on how you want your windchime/mobile to look you may want more or less flames than I used - I used 16 flames but actually printed 32 and stuck them back to back so they have colour on both sides!

For the smoke:

• We only need the one filament change for the smoke and that will be at 1mm layer height as shown in the screenshot above.
• Again, feel free to adjust but I printed 6 smoke shapes and 6 mirrored smoke shapes then stuck them back to back as I did with the flames.

Once you've got all your printed pieces, it's time to start assembling!

Apologies for there not being many pictures of the process here but the fishing line I used is transparent so much as I tried very hard to take nice pictures of me tying knots in invisible thread, oddly enough, they just didn't come out very well!! I've made a few diagrams instead as I think they'll be more helpful to you really!

I found this easiest to do with it hanging up so I could make sure everything would sit in the correct position when in use so the first thing to do is give it something to hang from!

• Start by cutting 2 even lengths of fishing line (or string, but I used fishing line) - the length you use will depend on where and how you plan to hang it!
• Take one piece of fishing line and tie each end to the 2 holes marked in yellow in in pic 1
• Take your second piece of fishing line and repeat that process for the 2 holes marked in blue
• Now, you can either just hang it from the two strings or attach a hook or loop if you prefer

Now we have our windchime hanging up, it could really do with some chimes I suppose - well, they hardly chime do they, it's more of a clanking noise but you know what I mean!

I first attached everything using small pieces of tape to ensure I was happy with the placement before knotting the fishing line and securing everything in place - this is optional of course but just a little tip before you start!

• I started by cutting 8 even lengths of fishing line - again this may vary a little by preference but mine were about 20cm long (I'd always rather have too much length than not enough for this kind of thing!)
• Attach a flame to the end of each length - you can just knot the end of the fishing line or glue it if you like!
• Now, you need to hang the flames from each of the holes in the outer ring of the disk (marked in yellow in the second pic) so they hang evenly
  • I'd recommend attaching one then doing the corresponding one on the other side of the disk then repeat so that it doesn't end up heavier on one side as it's quite difficult to get it even otherwise.
• Once you're happy with the placement of your outer ring of flames, repeat the previous two steps but this time hang them from the middle ring (as highlighted in the 3rd pic) - hang this row of flames just a little higher than the last
• Finally, repeat the previous process again on the inner ring (again marked in yellow in the 4th pic) but this time using the smoke shapes - you'll want these to hang above your flames and may want to position these at varying heights this time.

You should now have a fully built flame windchime/mobile!!!

Enjoy your creation!

I was really pleased with the way the flames flicker and the smoke twirls in a breeze, and I was pleasantly surprised that I actually don't hate the jangly sound it makes either!

I hope you like it too!

If you made it and don't mind sharing a pic of your make, I'd love to see it!

I also have vague plans to do a similar thing for the other elements so keep an eye out for that if you liked this one! :)