Spinning Figure Design

6 Steps to Making a Spinning Figure

Make one gear (you have to print 2 later but they can be the same design but you might want to design them to perfectly fit in an L shape). I had trouble with this step because I couldn’t find an easy way to evenly space and make the teeth of the gear so instead I imported the image below and traced it almost exactly and it worked really well. Then I added holes and to make it lighter and easier to print and I added a hole in the middle for a wooden post that I measured and sized to fit in the hole. If you want something to fit perfectly you have to make the hole about 0.4 or more bigger then the size of the post. I did not make the hole big enough but I was able do find a drill bit the same size as my post so I drilled the hole so it would fit.

The extrude the middle symmetrically 5mm and the outside symmetrically 7mm. Then chamfer all the edges. It will look like this

Now create a container for the gears to hid in. You can just find one where the gears can fit in well (if you can it needs to be at the same diameter and other measurements as the one I made). Then revolve this design around the dashed line. I had to drill the hole in base and the lid for the post to fit in. It should look like this after you revolve.

Then make the lid with measurements that could fit around the base. Then revolve around the dashes line like you did with the base.

Then create any design you want to spin. I chose my school logo and uploaded a picture to onshape and traced and extruded it. The you have to make a small post coming out of the bottom of your design and you want to make it about 2 mm bigger then the post you want to put into it. I made mine 7 mm with a extrude removing the inside of that with the size of 5.45 leaving a wall the size of 1.55 mm.

3D print all the pieces (2 gears, 1 base, 1 lid, 1 spinning figure) out with supports. Then find the post you have been sizing everything to assemble. Cut the post to fit nicely into the bottom hole and make sure the gear is low enough that both gears will nicely fit in. Then size the side gear so it fits nicely with the bottom gear and will move smoothly in the container. Draw a dot where the middle of that gear touches the side and dill a hole for post to go through for the handle. Then put the lid on and slide the logo on to the post on top. Here is how mine looked but my base didn’t fully print so I had to cut a hole in the lid for the gears to work but it ended up working well.