Two Houses in One

The idea of combining two houses into one is nothing really new. In this case, however, it is. By separating the house into living, eating and working areas and sleeping areas. The high ceilings are a particular highlight here. However, in this case, special attention has been paid to the external appearance.

Here, the house is intended to create a particularly lively and authentic effect. Small details, such as individual wooden beams, pets on the terrace or the lighting in the house, are intended to bring the model to life.

It is definitely worth gaining experience in modelling. If you can do 3D modelling, you have virtually no limits. Thankfully, I already have experience in modelling, but I can recommend it to every beginner to give it a try. It's worth it.

I use Blender for this. It's a free, comprehensive tool for modelling, rendering and animating.

For 3D printing, I use printers from Prusa and their own program, Prusa Slicer. Both the programme and the printer are very easy to use and work quickly and efficiently. The software is free and the printer was provided to me by the university.

And for the interior lighting I bought an ESP32 on the Internet. These are available quite cheaply. Again, I can only recommend them. These parts are really incredible and you can really do a lot with them.

The LED strip was also made available to me by the university. You can simply use a normal RGB LED strip here.

In Summary:

3D Modelling: Blender

Rendering: Blender

Slicing: Prusa Slicer

Printing: Prusa XL + Prusa MK3S

Lighting: ESP32 + LED Strip

You would think that the modelling is the hardest part. But as you will see, this is one of the easiest parts.

The most important thing is to let your creativity run free and model as if there were no limits.

Documenting the modelling process piece by piece is difficult. You could say that you simply modell from the bottom up, but that would not be true.

1. Walls

First I modelled the outline of the house, i.e. the walls. This was one of the simpler steps.

2. Base Plate

Once the walls were finished, I was able to continue with the base plate. I simply modelled the shape of the wall and created a recess in which my wall would fit perfectly into the base plate.

3. Wooden Beams

Then came the wooden beams. They make the house look realistic and give it its initial character. I decided on one beam ‘per house’ and smaller beams for the connecting part of the two parts.

4. Roof

Then I focussed on the roof, which should simply adapt to the height of the wall.

5. Small Details

This was followed by details such as a terrace, a chimney pipe and pets.

6. Room Layout

Later in the process, I realised that I needed to create a rough room layout for my lighting in the house. So I created a total of 12 rooms / areas so that I could later control them individually with LEDs.

Thanks to my university, through which I first got into 3D printing, I had access to a few 3D printers that I could use for my project.

After a few other test prints, I was ready to convert my project into physical form. I printed in roughly the same order as I had modelled.

As I didn't want to / couldn't print everything at once, I had already decided to work in individual parts when modelling so that I could easily put them together later.

1. Base Plate

I started with the base plate and was able to get an idea of the dimensions of the project for the first time.

2. Walls

I printed the walls and slowly the project began to take shape.

3. Small Parts & Roof

I printed the small individual parts and only towards the end I printed the roof as one larger part.

4. Roof Problems

However, there were some problems with the roof. When modelling, I had decided to bind the small wooden beams, which sit on the large wooden beam, to the roof and print it in one piece.

Unfortunately, it turned out that these thin and small beams were not stable enough to fit into the gaps in the wall and be removed again if I had to get back to the inside of the house.

So I decided to remove the beams that were previously attached to the roof and only attach the pieces of the beams that were visible on the outside of the wall. The roof was now held in place by magnets on one side and 3 overhanging beams on the other.

5. Room Layout

Finally, I printed the room dividers to stop the light from entering other rooms and destroying the visual effect

6. Cable Holders & Covers

In addition, I printed a few cable holders and other covers, for example for the ESP's power LED.

1. Soldering

In addition to my first (large) 3D printing project, this was also my first soldering project.

Even if some of the soldered joints looked anything but perfect, they still fulfilled the simple purpose of functioning. That was more than enough for me.

2. WLED Implementation

I had planned to make a lighting system with at least one LED for each room, which could later be controlled manually.

A staff member at the university then suggested the open source project WLED.

This saved me a lot of work, as I only had to flash my ESP with the WLED code and connect it to the Internet. Now I could control my ESP and my LED's with any smartphone, tablet or computer in the same network.

Then I decided to paint the whole building myself (a decision I regret a little).

I painted the walls, the roofs and the details such as the dogs.

Unfortunately, I wasn't completely satisfied with the colour scheme. It looks slightly drab and colourless.

For future projects, I would rather switch directly to coloured print material, as this not only saves a lot of work, but also produces a much better and more intense colour image.

To enhance the project a little more, I personally was still missing a few things, which I added later.

1. Windows

From a simple loose-leaf binder film, I cut window panes in the appropriate sizes and shapes to reduce the direct view into the interior of the building (which only consists of empty rooms with LEDs)

2. Window Frames

In order not to make the windows look too plain and boring from the outside, I decided to model and print frames and window sills. I also painted these by hand in a wood colour and glued them to the window openings from the outside.

3. Power Supply

To provide a nicer flow, I drilled a hole in the bottom of my base plate, which ended up inside my house at the ESP. The cable went out the side of the base plate and was attached with hot glue.

As you can't see the house from below by default, this ‘hot glue method’ was more than successful.

I ordered a black power supply unit cheaply on the internet and had it engraved with a laser machine at the university. For the symbol I decided to use a house with a light bulb in it, as I thought it was somehow appropriate.

4. Gap Filler

As I unfortunately had problems with the roof from the beginning to the end of the print and also had to remove the beams from it, I noticed a gap between the roof and the wall on one side of the house when the light was switched on, through which light was shining.

So I first decided to use magnets to pull the roof on this side closer to the wall in order to close the gap. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite enough, which is why I finally decided to close these gaps with sealing tape, which worked surprisingly well.

5. Animation

To make this whole project even more realistic, I animated the lights when switching on and off. So they don't all switch on at the same time, but activate in the order in which you would enter the house. This creates a much livelier and more realistic picture of the house just by switching it on.

It's as if you come home in the evening and switch on the lights in the entrance area first, then go into the living room, then into the kitchen and so on.

And the other way round too, of course. When you leave the house (switch off), the light in the entrance area turns off last.

Overall, I am more than satisfied with my end result. Especially when considering that I've never had anything to do with 3D printing, ESP's, soldering or painting in this way before.

I am particularly proud of this project as I have transformed something visual into something physical and given it a function.

I can take a lot from this project for my next projects, in terms of improvements and ideas.

My goal is to get better and better at it and become more and more professional.

This project is definitely a good first step in the right direction.