Firework Segmented Centre

The full story of this build can be found under the excellent post from bubbaque and his build of the Firework Star at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5200407.

This thingi is a variation on the theme and uses a segment ball design which can be used with bubbaque's adapters in a similar manner to the way he uses another of my designs, the "spikey sphere" at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5090324.

When bullet pixels (eg WS2812) or other Christmas lights are attached to the ball or spokes coming from this centre it makes an excellent holiday display feature. There are two ways to use this.

a. Using threaded hole version of this centre and the adapters given by bubbaque, you can fit a series of "spokes" to this centre and attach programmable leds (WS2812 pixels or neo pixels) to them . Animating the pixels on the build using software such as xLights allows you to create realistic looking firework effects that can dazzle audiences. See the you tube video of bubbaques thingiverse.

b. Using the plain hole version of this centre OR the threaded adapter you can use each hole for a single pixel, fed from the inside of the sphere,. This gives a "sphere of pixels" that you can animate in a similar manner.

The alignment of the segments are via simple 4mm holes that you need to slip in a 10mm length or rod or a cut down M4 bolt. You will need to glue the segments together as you build it. A future design addition may be a facility to clip the segments togther (rather than glueing them) similar to my spikey sphere design.

For the threaded version there are two sizes provided . One at 150mm and the other at 175 mm diameter. I found the smaller one a little tight at fitting the adapters around the top ring, so I just increased the size to space them out a little further.

The thread is M18x2.5mm (bubbaques adapters fit it..) and I have used 5 holes per segment and 10 segments for the sphere. Each segment is slightly different to make the threaded holes top and bottom when they join together. So this makes up 52 holes in total. I have included a zipped up files of all the segments for each of the different sizes.

Printing threaded holes can be difficult to get right, and depends on how well your printer is set up. I always recommend that you run a tap through each hole, to clear the threads.

I have included a threaded adapter to allow the use of single pixel with the threaded sphere version. If you're using spokes then see bubbaque's posts for the adapters and assembly details.

For the plain hole version (bullet pixels are a push fit in from the rear), all the segments are the same so only one is required,.. just print it 10 times. This version has also 10 segments but i increased the size to 180mm diameter to accommodate 7 pixels per segment and two addition top and bottom (or use the top bottom holes for fixing) so this version take 72 pixels.

I can make the balls to any size you like, and happy to accommodate any requests provided I am not suddenly inundated with bespoke designs.

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