December 29, 2023
Description
Show your love of hexagons and bees with this industrious worker bee. The perfect companion for your workspace proves hexagons are best-a-gons and is sure to give you a buzz! Whether the bee inspires you to improve your productivity or waste time counting its many hexagons, it’s sure to make your space more enjoyable.
This model was printed in PLA+, and it should print well in PETG as well. Pure PLA may be a bit brittle to use for this print.
This model has been designed with small part tolerances so that the pieces can fit together snugly for poses that stay put. All the connecting rods in this model have been designed with a 2 mm radius, and all the claws in this model have been designed with a 2.1 mm inner radius except the wings which have an extra tight 2.05 mm radius.
Because all printers and filaments are different, it’s recommended that you start by printing just dual_claw_connector.stl, rod_connector.stl, and one of the wings from small_wings.stl in the appropriate filament(s). Test the fit of the dual claw connector with rod connector. It’s recommended you wear safety goggles during this step as the parts may suddenly snap if the fit is incorrect. If the fit is too loose or too snug adjust the scale of the dual_claw_connector.stl in the slicer appropriately (try increments of 2% or so) and try again. Do the same with the small wing.
Once you know the scale to use for the appropriate fit for the dual claw connector, apply that not only to dual_claw_connector.stl during the final printing, but also to all leg_bottom stls, leg_top.stl, head.stl, eyes.stl, and antennae.stl. Do the same with the scale selected for the wings and small_wings.stl and big_wings.stl.
It’s recommended to print parts in the orientations given in their stl files.
Use 2-3 walls and 10% infill. Excessive infill or walls, especially in the abdomen, may result in too much weight for the model to maintain its pose. The model shown was printed with 0.15mm layer height.
You may prefer to print rod_connector.stl without supports and accept a small failure rate (about 10% in my experience) because supports are difficult to remove from this piece. However, it does benefit from using a 2-3 mm brim with or without supports. If you find the supports overly difficult to remove from the wings, you may print the wings at a 45 degree angle from the print plate with the smooth side facing down since supports are generally easier to remove from a smooth surface. It’s not recommended to print the wings horizontally on the print bed as it can make their claws quite fragile, especially considering their extra tight tolerance.
There are some other places where you may want to BLOCK SUPPORTS such as the holes on the bottoms of the eyes (for connecting pins), inside the socket of leg_middle.stl (but not on the bottom of it), and the ANTENNAE HOLES on head.stl because those supports are hard to remove and the parts don’t have a much higher failure rate without them. Trust me, I know from personal experience that removing supports from inside the antennae holes is neither fun nor easy and the supports do very little to help the printing process.
You can bake in filament changes in the slicer to make the parts multi-colored. This can particularly help with increasing the aesthetic appeal of the abdomen by giving it stripes. This can also be used to print rod_connector.stl in multiple colors to better hide joints.
It’s recommended to wear safety goggles during assembly. Although the odds of a part suddenly snapping should be low and much lower than during testing part tolerances, it only takes one piece of plastic to the eye to have an unpleasant experience.
Start by pushing the thorax colored rod connectors into the sockets on the thorax. It can help to use needle nose pliers to get a good grip. (I held the connectors parallel to the rods by the connecting supports.) Push one of the rod connector’s teeth towards the notch in the socket and push and twist down similar to removing a child-proof cap. The connector should twist into place fairly easily. Some deformation of the connector’s teeth is expected and accounted for in the design. Next do the same for the leg colored rod connectors and the leg middle pieces.
Push the eyes into the eye sockets on the head. If the fit is loose, you may want to use a bit of super glue to secure them. Put the antennae into the antennae sockets on the head. The antennae should fit as the sockets were designed with a fairly forgiving tolerance... unless the sockets are filled with support material. (The antennae are designed with a 1.75mm diameter, and the antennae sockets have a 2.1mm diameter.) If you have trouble with inserting an antenna, make sure you’re pointing the straighter part of the antenna towards the socket and try again. If it still won’t fit, size down antennae.stl in the slicer and try printing them again or try using short pieces of filament for the antennae instead. Attach the head to the thorax on the static rod that’s not adjacent to rod connector sockets on the top.
Use the dual claw connector to attach the abdomen to the thorax using the attached rod connector on the thorax that’s opposite to the head. Attach the wings to the back of the thorax with the smaller wings connecting closer to the abdomen.
Assemble the legs. Each leg consists of a leg top, a leg middle, a (short, medium, or long) leg bottom, and a foot connected in that order. It’s recommended that you attach the leg top to the leg middle with the larger ends facing each other and then connect the leg bottom so the flared part of the bottom leg faces down towards the foot. Once you have the six legs assembled, attach them to the thorax with the short legs closest to the head and the long legs closest to the abdomen.
Enjoy your bee!
P.S. If you have suggestions for improving this design or tips for assembly/printing, please leave a comment.
Update: After some irl feedback, I've uploaded a stand for the bee. (It's not easy putting six feet on the same plane.) It fits nicely under the thorax.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — Share Alike
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