The Printed Pennies

Travel the world without leaving home! My entry to the 0.2 nozzle competition is a series of 3D printed, souvenir pressed pennies featuring the current Seven Wonders of the World. (see photos!)

Featuring: The Great Wall of China, Chichén Itzá, Petra, Machu Picchu, Christ the Redeemer, The Colosseum and The Taj Mahal

The long story:

These are designed after the pressed pennies I love from Disneyworld and the size was approximated to match how I remember them. The topmost surface is ironed to resemble smooth metal and if you peel them up when they are warm, you can get the nice curl of a real one too! I have definitely been impressed by the 0.2 nozzle during this project and was constantly blown away when the tiny details actually showed up when sliced. It was interesting to see how the Arachne wall setting can bring out details that would disappear with the Classic wall setting. Also, I originally expected that I would be printing the outline (line art) versions of the images I wanted, but then found that extruding only the fill/inside areas made for a better print. It was impressive to see how distinct shapes would still show with only a very thin space between them. The 0.2 nozzle also made for a beautiful, smooth background and especially put the 0.4 nozzle to shame on that front. The seamless lines make silk filament look amazing on the background but unfortunately silk performs poorly with the rest of the print (ironing and fine details aren't good) . The Bambu metals and basics printed well but weren't the colour I wanted. The samples shown were printed with Copper Penny PLA from Canadian Filaments as that was the best match for the penny colour. I did run into quite a few clogs along the way and there wasn't a whole lot of advice out there on how to prevent them but “heat creep” was frequently mentioned as a possible cause. I did have more success by keeping prints short and allowing the nozzle to cool between prints instead of going back to back immediately. If you run into issues with clogs for this, I would suggest the same type of thing- just print a couple at a time instead of all of them.

Scale up and check after slicing if you want to use the 0.4 nozzle. You can also scale up to whatever you'd like on whatever nozzle, add a hole in the slicer for a keychain or add a magnet afterwards and put them on the fridge. They are versatile!