Before mechanical gears and LED displays, our ancestors had to slowly track the movement of the sun, carefully sticks against dial plates in relation to their position on Earth, all just to know what time it was. Today, it’s so easy to check your wristwatch or smartphone. Now, combining the ancient time-telling technology of sundials with algorithmic design, a creative and extremely patient designer has created CAD data in stl format allowing you to 3D print a sundial that allows users to digitally read the time.
The 3D printed digital sundial functions without the use of batteries, motors or electronics—all that’s needed are four 3D printed ABS parts, a jam jar, and a few screws, nuts and washers. What’s more, the inventor claims that due to the extremely precise nature of the design, this digital sundial can only be recreated with 3D printing technology, and cannot be mass-produced through injection molding or other traditional manufacturing techniques. We’ve never seen anything like it at our 3D printing service bureau.
The 3D printed digital sundial works just like a traditional sundial by matching up shadows with the Earth’s rotational axis. However in this case, the shape of the 3D printed part at our 3D printing service bureau had been mathematically designed with precisely-placed holes so that it can redirect sunlight into the shape of actual numbers, meaning you can read it as easily.
If you want one of these yourself 3D printed at our service bureau, go to Thingiverse.com and download the stl data taking note of what else is required. Then upload the file for a quote.
Just to remind you all that at our 3D printing bureau service we only use Professional Stratasys 3D printers that use FDM technology. We have two machines. One is a Dimension Elite 3D printer has a build envelope of 204 x 204 x 305mm and the other is also a Dimension machine that has a bigger build envelope of 254 x 254 x 305mm. These are considered to be mid-range as far as build envelopes go.
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