this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 35 points 1 year 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.

[–] cassetti@kbin.social 17 points 1 year 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.

[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year 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.

[–] cassetti@kbin.social 12 points 1 year 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

[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

[–] cassetti@kbin.social 3 points 1 year 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_@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Wilshire@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] nei7jc@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Their logo is 2

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Misconduct@reddthat.com 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year 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).

[–] Syrc@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Closest I could find is this 6-hour timelapse

20 minute segments, cool!

[–] Creazle@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you reset it after the powers gone out?

[–] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] jacktherippah@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Sharpiemarker@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Gikiski@fedia.io 11 points 1 year ago

A few ground markings could make it analog as well.

[–] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

This is about as analog as it comes.

[–] ShadowRam@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We have restarted up functional print over here at kbin,

kbin.social/m/functionalprint