Colorful Christmas Marble Fountain

Merry Christmas!

The idea for this project was to create an illuminated holiday display, with a cascading stream of marbles running down it. I also wanted to use parts that folks likely already have or can easily source. Motor and illumination are optional. If you prefer you can manually rotate the tree clockwise using the star on top as a handle to bring the marbles to the top. It takes around seven turns to ‘prime the pump' then it pumps out four marble per rotation. The main pump assembly is just three parts and easy to assemble/disassemble. No tools are required. Might be a fun toy for the budding engineer in your family who likes to figure out how things work.

For the fully motorized version, it is designed to reuse the motor and marbles from the Bambu Labs Marble Run Kit. I believe the motor from the Engine Model Kit works as well. For illumination it uses the LED lamp from the Bambu Labs LED Lamp Kit. Other small lamps could work too. The motor and LED just drop right in. Again, no tools required.

You can supply your own marbles as long as they are the right size. If you want to max it out you need around 36 marbles.

• The Bambu Labs Marble Run marbles are 14mm in diameter and work perfectly.
• These Chrome Steel marbles are 13mm and work as well.
• A bit smaller marbles should work. I've not tested how small you can go though.
• Anything larger than 15mm is not going to work.

Plates 1, 2, and 3:

• Contain the parts required to build the marble pump. I'd suggest printing these with a translucent filament so the illumination shows through. I used SUNLU PLA. The Bambu Labs LED is quite bright so even less translucent filaments should light up.

Plate 4:

• Contains the two decorative parts to complete the piece. They screw onto the other parts. These are designed to leverage the AMS to create multicolor pieces. Those who have multiple AMS's could go nuts with the number of colors applied.

Plate 5:

• Contains the single color version of the two decorative parts. The decorations are embossed so they will still stand out on single color prints. There are nine different holiday symbols around the base so lots of multi-color opportunity for multi-AMS owners.

This really stretched my design skills to the limit. Took over two weeks to get everything working. Future ideas to explore;

• Max out the pump volume. Currently it pumps 36 marble per minute. I think it is possible to at least double that rate.
• Incorporate an old fashion hand crank music box in the base so it plays music while running.
• What are your ideas?

Suggestions on removing support material:

First, be sure to let it cool down completely before attempting to remove the support. We want it to be stiff, not flexible.

When removing the support; hold the model firmly with one hand, with the other hand use the biggest needle nose pliers you can to grab the support chunk from the bottom where it was attached to the build plate. Make sure you have a firm grip and twist the pliers clockwise/counter-clockwise then pull straight out. Take your time. Don't expect it to pop off in one go. You're just hoping to cause some cracking noises. Then move the pliers to a different spot and repeat the twist/pull to hopefully create some more cracking noises. Eventually larger and larger pieces of support will come loose. It gets easier as you go. Again, just be patient initially.

Enjoy!