Forever Beyblade - Desktop Showpiece

Didn’t you ever wondered to have a Beyblade that would never stop spinning just like in the original anime series? A Beyblade spinning and going after its opponent in the dish?

Supplies

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has spun a Beyblade on their palm of the hand to get a closer look and admire its beautiful colors, especially Dragoon V! In one of the episodes Beyblade v-force, a childhood scene showed Tyson's Beyblade spinning in a dish, that was the image I knew I wanted to recreate somehow. whether through physical means or digital media.

I tried to do this a few years back. Made a 3D Model of Dragoon V Beyblade using online image and videos as references. All the parts were 3d printed in PLA on my Anet a8 which was a great printer to tinker with. The model consisted of Beyblade, pullies, motor and an enclosure. It was a straightforward design where Dragoon V simply spun on its axis. It used a geared motor and was powered via external power supply but didn’t capture the essence of beyblading!

I wanted to create something with more character than just a static spin! Goal was to encapsulate the movement of Beyblade spinning and circling in the dish without deviating from its path, to capture the view of a Beyblade which is about to lose its spin but keeps on going because dragoon and Tyson are not ready to give up the fight.

The question was how to move forward this? How was this possible? I knew there were RC Beyblade that could spin and change the direction but they were all gimmicks, a RC Beyblade could not maintain same path over and over again. Instead of randomly thinking ideas, lets sort some things out first!

Let’s start by ideating on what the actual product should look like. There has to be a parabolic dish for Beyblade to rotate and revolve in, a dish specially from Beyblade original series. Of course, a Beyblade with all the stickers and details. Making sure that the whole setup doesn’t take too much space on the desk but also looks proportional to the eye. Now how to achieve the rotational and spinning motion of the Beyblade? Again, let’s break it down to simpler form! Two options that can be used to achieve this are, Magnetic Levitation and Locking: Some technologies, such as in levitation experiments, utilize patterned magnetic fields to "lock" objects into a fixed position within the field, allowing them to float or remain suspended but considering the spinning action and the weight of the Beyblade, it would not hold up using regular Neodymium magnets, and will need alignment every time it falls from its position. The second option is mechanical approach using motor, batteries gears or pullies, which is more viable option but being mechanical it will create noise.

Now the million-dollar question was, how to make both the movements, rotational and revolution using a single motor? This rotation and revolution on its own axis are every similar to the way earth moves around the sun, it rotates on its own axis which makes 24 hrs while revolving around the sun which makes 1 year. Let’s use this insight to build a mechanical structure for our idea.

Let's imagine the Sun and Earth in space, where the Earth revolves around the Sun and rotates on its axis. If we were to disregard the Earth's rotation and closely observe its path, we would observe it moving in a circular path around the Sun.

This motion can be replicated using a connecting arm, with one end fixed to a motor and the other end fixed to the Earth. Now, to make the Earth revolve around the Sun while also rotating on its axis, we can add a gear to the Sun and a pinion to the Earth. When the gears are in motion, the Earth will rotate on its axis while simultaneously revolving around the Sun. This setup allows both motions to be achieved using a single motor.

Before moving to 3d modelling, it’s a good practice to sketch and lay down thoughts and details of the final product. To make the Beyblade look like its circling in the dish, it would make a huge visual impact if the Beyblade is tangent to the surface of the dish. And that can be achieved via custom bevel gear.

Before making and detailing the full version, I tested the working on a very simple model to see the gear ratio and how the Beyblade looked. The mechanism worked and looked beautiful even without the stickers.

As the test was successful, it was time to finalise mechanisms and working out all constraints in the 3D model including detailing of the dish which was a taken from sing Ming-Ming episode from the final series in which Daichi and Ming-Ming went head-to-head. With projects such as this one, that have moving parts, it’s important to plan out part placement and making sure no moving parts or objects are sharing same space. For this purpose, it’s easier to make danger zone bodies in x-ray mode that visually indicates that no other body can come in contact or can intersect with. Once the detailing was over, I printed out bare minimum section of the model to test the clearance and working before commenting to printing the full version and then realising I miss calculated things.

While all of the parts were printing, I exported top projections of attack ring as DXF, used clipping mask to trim the sticker per DXF outline, printed and cut them using exacto blade, tip for cutting really small radius curved lines is to rotate the sticker itself, applied them on the Beyblade using a tweezer to grab stickers helps in maintaining the stickiness otherwise the oils in the fingers tent to make it less sticky and used a que tip to apply on the stickers.

Assembly was very straight forward, the whole model, even the shafts are 3d printed, for motor I’m using battery operated gear motor at 100rpm, it uses 2 AA cells with compartment door that satisfyingly click into place, a sliding switch to turn it on and off.

Required for assembly:

1* single shaft BO gear motor. or double shaft BO gear motor with one side removed.

10*self taping screws, M2*8mm long.

1* SPDT sliding switch SS-12F15 1P2T

1* Battery terminals.

2* AA batteries

Dragoon V and Stickers, print at 100% scale in acrobat on a A4 paper. You can use a sticekr paper and then apply tape on it or use a normal paper and use glue to stick it.

2 files of Dragoon, Dragoon 2 and Dragoon 3 are larger than 25mb, please use thingiverse link to download.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6906133