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).
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
I printed mine out of PLA and it's been fine. PETG would definitely be better though.
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Nope, I printed this with a poorly calibrated FDM printer and it still worked great.
That's my secret... All of my printers are poorly calibrated
How do you reset it after the powers gone out?
You don't have to cos we'll all be dead
It looks cool, but I do wonder how accurate it is.
I believe it will depend on the time of year and latitude, but I'm no scientist.
A few ground markings could make it analog as well.
This is about as analog as it comes.
We have restarted up functional print over here at kbin,
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