Once again its time to think about Christmas,

Here is my first Christmas design, a Captured Snowflake ornament (7.5cm accross) hopefully capturing the magic of Christmas and displaying it all year round, this was initially intended to be hung on a Christmas tree with some ribbon threaded through the loop but i think this would look good all year round.

The first image shows the design, the second shows you how the snowflake is 'Captured' within the star from 6 points by using chains.

Tell me what you think, feedback would be appreciated.

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[Updated on: Sat, 17 November 2012 18:45 UTC]

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Thanks!

I have ordered a print and got the email today that it is 'en route to the 3d printers' so should be with me hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Here is the final finished model, the edges of the star were chamfered in different ways to produce this effect.:

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Yes, the chains are printed without any problems due to the SLS 3d printing manufacturing technique and are surprisingly strong for their size due to the un-brittle nature of this material and high tensile strength. If you look at the design page: http://shpws.me/muEP there is a video showing the design and the chains.

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[Updated on: Sun, 09 December 2012 07:38 UTC]

Thanks,

The chains are actually loose enough to allow full movement within the constraints of the cage so i don't think it would help by slackening them enlarging the cage or shrinking the snowflake will create a larger range of movement however i do not feel this is neccassary the suspension is a lot more apparent and obvious in person.

To your second question, the software I use is Autodesk Inventor, I created 2 curves following the contours of the cage and then used the sweep command, these were then repeated in a circular pattern, regarding the fusing in the middle, they did not fuse neatly at first as you can see from this image:

I simply cut away straight down at the mess of edges until a flat surface emerged.

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[Updated on: Mon, 10 December 2012 17:57 UTC]

[Updated on: Tue, 11 December 2012 00:24 UTC]