Whale Toy

Like The Hedgehog , this design brings an easy to print approach of objects with moving parts. The goal is to print it at once without supports and assembling. Only one piece!

But there is an extra purpose for this object: make people aware.

This big mammal is seriously in trouble.
Whales can live over 150 years, and have a slow reproducing cycle. That makes them very vulnerable to population oscillations or even collapse. Whaling and overfishing together is an heavy lift and will drown all the ecosystem. Blue whales, the biggest animal ever existed, have still not recovered from being hunted to the brink of extinction. I hope this toy will remind how gentle those mammals are, and how much we need to preserve them as much all the ecosystem that keep us alive.

A few years ago, 3D printing was a tricky hobby. Good printers were expensive, printing software were dumb, and prusa was the only viable solution (at least for me).

Nowadays things are better. You have a lot of documentation and you can build your printer as good as expensive ones. Software is very smart now, and you can easily print almost anything with the help of it.

Because supports were hard to use in a good way, I've designed lots of things that were supportless. The good part is that design must be re-thinked in that way. Always with the lack of supports in mind, moving parts in a 3D object was the goal, even better if it could be easy to print and no assembling needed.

So, with this in mind, the Whale Toy is one example of a printable toy that does not require supports or assemble and it can be printed in one go. This means that this instructable will be very easy to follow. All the hard work is already done ;)

My kids played a lot with them. I hope you enjoy it ;)

Step 1: Print!

A well tuned printer is always a plus for this project. Don't be lazy, tune up your printer!

If you're lazy like me, you will print it anyway. Maybe your printer rocks, and it will give you a good result anyways...

My Print settings:

PLA

0,4mm nozzle

100% original size

0,2mm layer height

1mm exterior wall

20% infill

Supports off! - it wont work if you print it with supports.

2400 mm/min max printing speed (40 mm/sec) (I think this depends on your machine)

I've used 5% to 10% white filament (about 150mm using 3mm filament) at beginning then changed to blue filament to give this two color style print. (I only have one extrusion in my prusa).

Step 2: Remove It From Printer

The printed object is pretty robust, but because it have moving parts, you should be some careful the first time you move it. there are some pins that will break when you move it.

Check out the video above for visual instructions ;)

Step 3: Have Fun!

You have fun!

I'm sure you will like this low poly style whale. Its a good toy or decoration object, that moves! ;)

Thank you for watching.