Santa's Sleigh Moving Automata

Every year since I got my first 3D printer, I've designed a custom printed gift for my family, trying to one-up myself every year. They are usually really personalized so I don't upload them, but this one is more universal and I got very ambitious with it, so I thought I'd share it!

What You'll Need:

Filament:

I used 5 colors: Red, Gold, Brown, White, and Black. Feel free to choose your own!

Other Materials:

• String (I used some red embroidery floss)

• Wooden Dowel (one is about an inch, one is about 13.25 inches.

• Screws - I found a 100 pack of #4 x 1/2 in Phillips head wood screws at Home Depot here in the US. A similar metric screw will work perfectly fine, there's no threads in the model, the screws just dig into the material a little bit)

• A small bag for candy or other presents :)

Tools:

• Screwdriver

• Saw or other method of cutting dowel

• Super glue

Printing Guidelines

There's a whole bunch of parts to this and I tried to make it pretty straightforward. Luckily, most of the parts are pretty small so total print time is relatively not too terrible! The naming system I'm using for my files here is COMPONENTGROUP_componentName_Quantity. Keep in mind the quantities to make sure you print all the parts!

For the deer and the sleigh sides, it's a simple color change at the first layer of the non-solid parts. This can be done without AMS!

Print the SLEIGH_Core part on its side.

The only part that you might want to use supports on is the DEER_Base_Print2 part, which prints as pictured above and you may want to use supports for the overhangs near the bottom, depending on the capabilities of your printer. Everything else prints on the flat side with zero overhangs.

I printed everything on my BBL P1S using the default draft preset. since the parts are all fairly flat and simple, it turned out very good with reasonable print times considering the scale of this thing-- about 7.5 hours total.

Assembly - it looks like a lot, but I promise it's really easy, I'm just being thorough!

Step 1:

Grab your SLEIGH parts, we're going to put this together first. I borrowed a woodworking technique called dominoes to join the two sides to the core. The tiny dominoes friction fit very well for me, depending on your printer, you may want to use glue or sand them down a bit for too small or too big, respectively.

Basically, just jam all the dominoes into all the holes on both of the flat sides of the core (pressing in with the butt of a screwdriver or something like that)...

... and snap on the side plates!

Step 2:

Connect BASEBAR_A and BASEBAR_B together! They should just slot together at the dovetail joint. Make sure the sides match.

Step 3:

Locate your LEVER pieces, pictured below. The two gears slot into the holes in the base piece pictured on the left, and then the two base pieces are glued together. I put glue in the cavities pictured below and then clamp them together. Make sure not to get any glue on the gears! 

Step 4:

Use a drop of glue to insert your 1-inch dowel into the small gear:

Step 5:

Slide the lever onto the exposed dowel end and screw in the screw into the hole. Be sure to stop when the screw head is roughly flush with the plastic. Make sure that the lever spins both gears:

Step 6:

Slot the BASEBAR part into the bottom of the lever assembly. It should be on the end of the longer of the two base bar pieces. Additionally, insert and screw in one end of the 13.25 in dowel, again until the screw is flush with the plastic.

Step 7:

Slide the sleigh onto the dowel. There is a bump on the bottom of the sleigh that should slot into the divot on the base bar to hold it in place.

Step 8:

Slide the first DEER_Base part onto the bottom bar. It should be positioned directly over the seam between the two base bar parts. Then, slide on two of the DEER_Pusher parts with one of the spacers in between them down the dowel and into the base part as pictured. You'll need to pull the dowel out of the base part to do this. Once the pushers and spacer are lined up with the base part, you can push the dowel down into its spot.

Be very careful doing this, as the two supports in the middle of the base part are extremely fragile. This is an unfortunate design flaw that I didn't have enough time to fix.

Next, rotate the two pushers so they are perpendicular with each other. This makes it so the reindeer next to each other bounce opposite of each other. If you want the bounces to be spaced differently, you can adjust the angle. Once you're happy with the position, screw them in, once again until the screw head is flush with the plastic. Be very careful not to screw too far or the piece will split.

Step 9:

Repeat with at the end of the base piece. be mindful of how the angle of the pusher parts relates to the other set behind it, based on the animation you want (i.e. do you want both reindeer on one side to be high at the same time or one high / one low, etc.)

Step 10:

Gather the reindeer and the DEER_Bar pieces. Slot in the bars in opposite directions as pictured, and attach the reindeer!

Step 11:

Repeat with the other two deer and give it a spin! If you're happy with the "animation", move on to the next step!

Step 12:

Use your string to simulate the reins! This isn't really an exact science and I kind of messed around until I got something that worked. Be careful not to make the string too tight, especially where it connects to the sleigh.

At this point, your deer have probably fallen off at least once during your testing. If you'd like, you can glue the deer to the bars, just make sure you're happy with the way everything looks because everything is locked in once you've done so. (and make sure to glue it up while the bar is in its slot, otherwise you won't be able to put it back together ;) )

Step 13:

Load up the back of your sleigh with some goodies and go deliver some presents! Enjoy!

(Also, if anyone finds a good Santa model to drive the sleigh, please share it in the comments!)