It is the last day of November. And tomorrow the Advent starts with December 1st. Over the last weeks I have spent the weekends with building an Advent Calendar. This year it is one without any electronics. The CNC machine has cut a pine wood tree. And the 3D printer created round threaded and numbered containers, with a shiny star on top of the tree:

Tree

The tree and socket are made of pine wood, cut on a Shapeoko 4. The tree size is 40×50 cm. So I can cut two trees plus the sockets out of a 40x120x2 cm wooden board.

The base is very simple and made of the same wood:

Container

The 24 round cut-outs in the tree hold one round container each:

Star

The star is printed with Prusament PLA Blend “Viva la Bronce” color which is very close to ‘gold’ color:

The star is printed in two parts and glued together. A a ‘golden’ paperclip wire is used to mount it on top of the tree.

Container

The container number is printed with three different filaments: Prusament “Galaxy Green”, Prusament “Galaxy Red” and Prusament “Viva la Bronce”. In the slicer, I request filament changes for the two extra colors:

To get the details printed, a 0.25 mm nozzle has been used instead of the standard 0.4 mm one. It really makes a difference for such small details.

The container is a threaded, parametric in FreeCAD:

Text

Each container holds enough space for some sweets plus a part of a longer Advent story. The story is cut in 24 pieces and laminated with a special foil to give it a ‘magical’ touch.

Then the text snippets are placed into the container.

Summary

The design of this calendar is simple, but still challenging. The easiest part was with the wood and CNC machine. The 3D printing has been very demanding, with different materials, including printing with different nozzle diameters.

A total of three Advent Calendar have been built, filled with different stories and sweets. Two calendar have been gifted by today evening, and the last one will be delivered tomorrow, November 1st. I hope they will enjoy it in the next 24 days.

Happy Adventing 🙂

Links

• Prusament: https://www.prusa3d.com/category/prusament/
• Threaded container base design: https://www.printables.com/model/781549-parametric-easy-screw-top-container-maker-freecad-
• Christma Star: https://www.printables.com/model/98659-christmas-star-stern-fur-christbaum
• 2020 Advent Calendar: https://mcuoneclipse.com/2020/11/28/laser-cut-advent-calendar-2020/
• Number and ornament design by https://www.printables.com/@ThomasDonocli_840264
• 2021 Advent Calendar: https://mcuoneclipse.com/2021/12/05/advent-calendar-for-2021/
• 2022 Advent Calendar: https://mcuoneclipse.com/2022/12/01/advent-calendar-2022/