Carousel Box

My husband and I were watching a show called “The Repair Shop” on Netflix when we saw a magical musical carousel. It was fascinating! It turned out to be an antique smoker’s music box. A little research showed that these nifty dispensers were also used for lipstick. (Google “cigarette music box” for many examples) It looked like an excellent 3D printing challenge, so I bought a cheap one from Etsy. We disassembled it and recreated it using Tinkercad. Ours operates manually without the music box, but it’s still a pretty cool project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpRs0ENBUac (not our video, but it’s essentially the same piece – ours does have a dancing ballerina in the middle – except she lost her head)

We used the gears found here (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185912) but sized them for our needs. Everything else was made from scratch.

Technical Details:

Printed with PLA on Creality CR10-S4. Bed temp 60c, Nozzle temp 200c

Base (1) and lid (1):

Both the base and the lid can be printed flat side down with no supports. 20% infill is a good balance between rigidness and print time. .2mm layer height provides smooth detail.

Print one of each.

Center stem (1)

This connects the turning knob at the top to the gears inside the base to rotate the carousel. Print at 80-100% infill for strength, .2mm layer height.

Print one.

Doors (6)

For the best finish, print these standing up with supports. Adding auto supports in Simplify3d adds supports to the indented door design but those can be manually removed. 20% infill with .2mm layer height. The top and bottom pegs are a bit fragile – handle with care.

Print six

Gears

Large gear (1)

20% infill – .2mm layer

Print one.

Small gears (6)

20% infill – .2mm layer.

Print six.

Rings (6)

20% infill – .2mm layer.

Print six.

Assembly Instructions

The assembly is a little fiddly, so make sure you are nice and patient.

Place the doors in the holes of the base and the notches on the lid. The center hex cylinder should be seated in the hex cutout on the base. Make sure the doors are all in the same position (on the outside of the stops in the lid).

Insert the middle stem. Align the hex of the knob with the hex of the lid if you’d like.

Tape the doors together. Trust me. If it keeps falling down, tape as you go.

Flip everything over.

Add on the gears. Put the side with the little ridge facing the base. This allows for a little space for movement.

Top it off with the small rings.

The ring, gear and bottom door stem need to be glued together. This allows them to move together as a unit. Be careful not to glue anything to the base or the lid. (We lost multiple doors because they got stuck and snapped when we tried to move them.)

Let it dry and flip it back over.

Voila!

Turn the hex knob to operate.

I’m not sure how we will use this. Print a taller version for pens and pencils? The opportunities for design are endless. It would also make a great woodworking project. It would be neat to work out the music box piece. Maybe next time! We would love to see what you do with this idea!