I’m building a collapsible light saber using OpenSCAD, inspired by this model here: Collapsing Sith Lightsaber (Removable Blade) by 3DPRINTINGWORLD - Thingiverse. The main reason is that my printer is small (Flashforge Finder), with a maximum height of 140mm, but the models made by John Mulac (3dprintingworld) have 180mm+. I have printed some of the models by down-scaling them, but the Katana ones melted together and the light saber ones ended up not expanding as much as they should.
After a few attempts, I have ended up with this script that sort of works:
// Number of blades
nblades = 5;
// Starting blade bottom radius (mm)
r = 12.6;
// Height of all blades (mm)
h = 120.0;
/* [Advanced] */
// Delta between bottom and top of blade radius (mm)
delta = 1.4;
// Thickness of each blade (mm)
t = 0.8;
// Thickness of the handle (mm)
ht = 3;
// Tolerance between blades (mm)
tolerance = 0.4;
// If the handle should have edges rounded (recommended)
rounded = true;
/* [Use this for preview] */
// Expand the blades for preview
expand = false;
// Check this to preview how is the inside of the build.
previewInside = false;
// How much expanded blades touch each other when rendering. Use this to preview if they will overlap properly.
bladePreviewOffset = 20;
module blade(height, r1, r2, thickness, fillTop=false) {
$fn=60;
echo("Creating blade with", height, r1, r2, thickness, fillTop);
difference() {
cylinder(h=height, r1=r1, r2=r2);
translate([0, 0, -1])
cylinder(h=height+2, r1=r1-thickness, r2=r2-thickness);
}
if(fillTop) {
translate([0, 0, h-thickness])
cylinder(h=thickness, r1=r2, r2=r2);
}
}
module handle() {
$fn=40;
height = rounded ? h-1 : h;
r1 = r + ht;
r2 = r1-delta;
color("gray")
translate([0, 0, rounded ? 0.5 : 0])
difference() {
minkowski() {
union() {
// Base
cylinder(height, r1, r1);
// Bottom
translate([0, 0, 4]) cylinder(5, r1, r1+4);
translate([0, 0, 9]) cylinder(5, r1+4, r1+3);
translate([0, 0, 14]) cylinder(3, r1+3, r1);
// Middle
for(i=[0: 6: 32]) {
translate([0, 0, height-30-i]) cylinder(3, r1+2, r1);
translate([0, 0, height-33-i]) cylinder(3, r1, r1+2);
}
difference() {
translate([r-4, -5, 35]) cube([8, 10, 20]);
translate([r+4, -5, 50])
rotate([0, -45, 0])
cube([8, 10, 20]);
}
// Top
translate([0, 0, height- 5.0]) cylinder(5, r1+4, r1+4);
translate([0, 0, height- 8.0]) cylinder(3, r1+2, r1+4);
translate([0, 0, height-14.0]) cylinder(6, r1+2, r1+2);
translate([0, 0, height-16.0]) cylinder(2, r1, r1+2);
}
if (rounded) {
sphere(0.5, $fn=12);
}
}
translate([0, 0, -1])
cylinder(height+2, r1-ht+tolerance+1, r2-ht+tolerance+1);
}
}
module handleLid(r) {
r1 = r + ht;
color("gray")
translate([expand ? 0 : 4*r, 0, 0])
difference() {
cylinder(8, r1+2.5, r1+2.9);
translate([0, 0, 1.1])
cylinder(7, r1+0.8, r1+0.8);
}
}
function m(n) = expand ? (n<0 ? 0 : n) : 0;
module rotateToPrint() {
vec = expand ? [0, 0, 0] : [180, 0, 0];
off = expand ? [0, 0, 0] : [0, 0, -h];
rotate(vec) translate(off) children();
}
difference() {
union() {
rotateToPrint()
handle();
// Blades
rotateToPrint()
for (i = [0 : nblades-1]) {
let (r1 = r-(i*delta)-(i*tolerance), r2 = r1-delta) {
translate([0, 0, m(i+1)*(h - bladePreviewOffset)])
color("lightgreen")
blade(h, r1, r2, t, (i==nblades-1? true : false) );
}
}
handleLid(r);
}
// Cut in half to see the internals
if (previewInside) {
translate([0, -100, -1])
cube([200, 200, (nblades+2)*h]);
}
}
The main issue is that although I could print the model, it still do not collapse very well, specially at the final parts, probably related to the way I’m calculating stuff. I’m not sure if there is a basic trigonometry math that I could use in order to properly calculate the radius of each “blade” for them to be scaled but still overlap in the right place (i.e., close around 1.5cm of the edge) and stay connected with eachother.
This is also probably reflected in the way I’m exposing parameters, because what I am aiming for is to have a simpler way to enable one to properly define a height and then it calculate everything in order to properly print without melt.
Any ideas on how to properly calculate the radius on each inner blade? Thanks in advance!
After I figure out a good way, I plan to allow the customization of the handle, with several options, as well as work on another sword version close to a Katana and the likes.