Printing Pac-Man
I was watching a video on 3D Printing Nerd's youtube channel where he was printing a Pac-Man ghost (video at the end of this post).
It made me think that it could be fun to do something similar.
Here's what we're making:
Sizes
On the graphic I found on wikipedia - both pac-man and the ghost are 14x14 pixels. That means - equal height and width and since they are symmetrical - depth too. So - the models were based on 5cm in each direction.
Hanging
The parts are designed to hang. They have a 2mm hole directly thru to allow for this.
There is a small recess at the bottom of each part to give space for a knot - but I didn't use that. I have found that for my printer a 2mm hole is just right to be able to jam a bit of 1.75mm filament in - so I used invisible thread (transparent plastic thread) and just pushed a small filament piece into each hole to hold it. I may glue them in place later - not sure.
Pac-Man
Pacman is a sphere - so to avoid massive supports I decided to make him in two parts.
Each is a hemisphere with the mouth section removed.
Finally - there are two pegs (with relevant holes in his body) to hold it together. The mouth is angled at 45˚ so it prints OK without supports.
Ghost
The ghost is a simpler part - can be printed in one go without supports.
The base has some sharp points - if the first layer or so doesn't lay these down properly - start again - these need to be correct otherwise they will lift and cause a very poor print. I moved the bed level closer than I usually would so that the first layer could only just extrude.
The cuts don't go all the way into the center - this gives a small ring that increases the base area - giving better bed adhesion.
Fill percentage needs to be enough to support the eyes and dome. I used 15% for the straight edge parts and then 30% for the sections with eyes and up to the top.
Hanger
Lastly - I needed something to hang it from.
The hanger is designed with 8 2mm holes in the ring and one in the center to attach to (I used the same attachment method of pushing the thread through and then shoving a filament piece in - then cutting it flush).
The larger holes are just because it looked boring as a straight ring.
I also took 4 threads from the edge mount holes (every other hole) to go up to a hanging loop (a keyring split ring).
The hanger has an outer diameter of about 175mm - since my build volume is 200x200x180 and I forgot and assumed that the X and Y were 180 :)
Still to do
I’m waiting on a cheap battery powered disco ball motor that will allow this to spin at 2 or 3 RPM.