3D Printing Cat Toys - First Attempts

New 3D Printed Cat Toy Gallery

I keep chugging along with my 3D printing backlog of stuff to share.  I have just added a Cat Toys gallery with some very early shots of a cat toy I have printed.  It is in the 3D Printing section.

The toy provides a pretty good bed adhesion and overhangs test, and the cats really enjoy the toys, even if they did not print (or photograph) well. :)

The pictures and videos are all pretty bad.  I was just getting started both with 3D Printing and with photography/videography.  I have learned a lot since then.  The videos are also all in my 3D Printing playlist on my YouTube channel.

So, if you want to see bad photography of bad 3D printing of a neat and weird cat toy, go check out the new gallery. ;)  Whenever I make other cat toys, I will add their stories there too.

Enjoy!

Weird Cat Toy in the Making

Very early on, I found this weird cat toy and wanted to try it.  It also seemed like a good test of the printer.  So, shortly after getting the printer, I made a few of these cat toys.

... And Bad Photography

Because this was still very early on in my 3D printing days, I was also still figuring out how to take decent pictures too.  This is not a decent picture. :)

Getting There...

This is only a slightly better shot, but at least you can actually start to see what the cat toy will look like when it is done.  Additionally, see how little is touching the bed and how much overhand there is?  Good printer test!  And useful afterwards too! :)

Now we are talking!

So, my photos of this sucked.  But the videos are a bit better.  So, here is a snapshot from one of the videos to actually show the cat toy clearly (and in focus!). :P

Weird Cat Toy - 1: Just Starting

Shortly after getting my Ultimaker 2 3D printer, I tried printing this weird cat toy.  This video shows the beginning of the print.

Weird Cat Toy - 2: A Bit More Progress

This video shows a bit more progress.  You can see how little contact there is with the print bed, that I used supports and than this thing has some pretty severe overhangs.

Weird Cat Toy - 3: Chugging Along

In this video we are still chugging along.  You can see more of how dainty this thing is. :)

Weird Cat Toy - 4: Oh No! Drama!

In this fourth video we start to see the two halves being merged together.  But just when I become confident that the print will work without issue, ... , dun dun dun, ... a nasty surprise!  But, the cat toy did come out okay in the end.  It was certainly good enough for my cats! :)

Weird Cat Toy - 5: Try and Try Again

This video is of a whole other printing.  Another of the cat toy, printed with different settings.  (Also, the cats lost the first one!) :P