- 3dprintinghelp
Custom Christmas Tree
With Christmas right around the corner, have you ever wanted to create a Custom Christmas Tree? Maybe you want to add names, dates or cut-out images to the tree to make it just a bit more festive or fun. In this tutorial, we are going to add Mickey Mouse cut outs to a Christmas Tree.
To make this, we will use tinkercad and some free files from Cults3d.
Christmas Tree File
The first thing to do is to find yourself a Christmas Tree file you would like to customize.
I'm going to use the Christmas Tree-2 Piece Design by Printshed_Designs found on Cults3d.
Mickey Mouse File
Since we want to add some Mickey Mouse cut outs to the tree, we need to find a Mickey Mouse file to use. I'm going to use the Simple Mickey Mouse Head which can be found on thingiverse by melomania.
Setup tinkercad
Once you have your files downloaded, you need to open tinkercad and click on Start Tinkering.
You will need to create a free account. Click on Create a personal account
You'll have the option to sign up with email, creating a new account using your email address, or linking to Google or Apple. Choose what is best for you.
Once you have signed in, click on Create new design
This is the main page for a new project. You already have your files, so we need to import them so we can start tinkering. Click on the Import button and select your Christmas Tree file to open in the Workplane.
Play around with scrolling your mouse wheel and using the directional cube at the top left of the page to see different angles of the object you imported. You can click and hold the cube and move your mouse around to free fly around your file. You can also click on the cube to move around to a specific view.
Next, we need to add in the Mickey Mouse file. Click on Import again and choose your Mickey Mouse file.
You will notice that the two files are different colors, which is great to help you visually see the difference. The Mickey Head is small, and Imported behind the tree, so you will have to click on it and move it so you can see it and manipulate it next.
Resize and Copy
To get the effect like in the example picture at the top of this page, you will need to resize Mickey Mouse file and rotate it around and place it somewhere on the tree, then multiple it so you can repeat the process.
To do this, click on the Mickey Mouse file to select it, and click and drag it away from the Christmas Tree. You can then resize the file by holding down shift and clicking and dragging the corner, or manually typing in a size.
Next, we need to know how tall the Christmas Tree and Micke Mouse file are and make the Mickey Mouse file taller.
Click on the Christmas Tree and then click on the middle white box to get the height of the Christmas Tree file. Make a note of that number. Do the same for Mickey Mouse.
The picture on the left shows us that the Christmas Tree is 4mm in height.
The middle picture shows us that the Mickey Mouse is 0.12mm in height.
To change the Mickey Mouse height, click on the text box showing 0.12 and change it to something bigger than the Christmas Tree. In this example, I am using 6mm. Click the white box, then click in the text box to change the value, then press Enter to change it.
Now you can click and drag the Mickey Mouse onto the Christmas Tree and position it where you would like. The key here is that you need to make sure that Mickey Mouse is going all the way through the Tree. To do this, once it's in the spot you like, you can click on Mickey Mouse and then click on the Cone shape above it. You can then click and drag that down to make sure Mickey Mouse is going all the way through the tree.
Next, we need to make Mickey Mouse a hole in the Tree. To do this, click on Mickey Mouse to select it, then click on the Hole button.
You can now duplicate this Mickey Mouse, rotate it, resize it and move it around the Christmas Tree however you like. Click on the Mickey Mouse and click the Duplicate. Then, click and drag the duplicate wherever you want to place it.
To rotate it, click on it and then click on the curved arrow to bring up the rotation options. You can free-form the rotation or type in a precise degree.
Keep doing this until you are happy with the number and placement of the Mickey Heads.
NOTE: Remember that these will be holes in the Tree. Do not place them too close to the edge or you will risk the edge of the tree being cut off during printing.
Now, we need to group these together. This will make everything one complete file. To do this, select everything and click on Group.
Export and Print
That's it! You can now export this file and print it. Don't forget that this specific Christmas Tree has a second file that you will need to add the Mickey Heads to in the same manner, then export as well.
When you Import the file into your slicer of choice and complete the slice, make sure to Preview to see how the file looks. If you need to modify the positions of any of the Mickey Heads, do that and try again.
