this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Hmm.

I do quite a bit of parametric modelling and I see how something like this could be made. Find the angles of the sun at specific times, project planes at a fixed distance and angle matching around your cylinder, sketch the time number you want on each plane with a fixed pitch and then project-cut back through the cylinder. Would be a pain in the ass though. And a pretty tough 3d print without soluble supports, given all those tiny tiny interior walls and cavities.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Actually printed one on a Zortrax printer a few years back - not perfect, but came out pretty good.

There are two different versions depending if you're in the northern or southern hemisphere. It's fun to show it to people and show how it changes if you rotate or adjust the pitch/angle of the sunddial.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is this available on thingiverse or something? I'd very much like to try my hand at printing it on some Prusa's I have access to. But don't think I'm up for that big of a parametric modelling challenge.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Love my Prusa MK3s printers, I would love a chance to print this again with better slicing software than Zortrax's Z-suite (which is horrible, lol).

Absolutely it's been online since 2015 - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1068443

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Awesome! I'm definitely giving this a try next weekend. Hopefully the petg I have holds up, I don't have an enclosure for ABS prints to come out right

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have PETG bog planters sitting out in the sun doing just fine. I print PETG all the time on my prusa printers. Just be sure to dry the filament extensively for best results, especially on something like this where you don't want a lot of stringing lol

[–] _haha_oh_wow_ 3 points 2 years ago

I printed mine out of PLA and it's been fine. PETG would definitely be better though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Their logo is 2

[–] _haha_oh_wow_ 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Nope, I printed this with a poorly calibrated FDM printer and it still worked great.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

That's my secret... All of my printers are poorly calibrated

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's a cool project, it'd be interesting to see a time-lapse video through full daylight hours (with a couple extra frames at the intervals when the numbers are clearest).

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Closest I could find is this 6-hour timelapse

[–] omgitsaheadcrab 8 points 2 years ago

20 minute segments, cool!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How do you reset it after the powers gone out?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

You don't have to cos we'll all be dead

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It looks cool, but I do wonder how accurate it is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I believe it will depend on the time of year and latitude, but I'm no scientist.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

A few ground markings could make it analog as well.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

This is about as analog as it comes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

We have restarted up functional print over here at kbin,

kbin.social/m/functionalprint