Finished my star and snowflake props just in time

I went through the same hole-size saga with a set of printed mini trees and a pair of small wreaths last season. Printed in PETG on my ender style printer and the first round of holes were so snug I cracked two node bases just testing them. Ended up bumping the diameter up a hair in the slicer and also added a tiny chamfer on the entry side, which makes snapping the pixels in from the front way easier than pressing them in flat.

I never got into printing my own props, mostly because I'm impatient and an afternoon of shop work beats waiting three days on a printer. My big star is a leftover piece of half inch plywood, laid out with a Sharpie and a string compass, holes drilled on the marks with a step bit. Painted it flat black with a couple rattle cans and it disappears against the night sky. Total cost was maybe twelve bucks and one Saturday morning, and honestly from the curb nobody can tell it isn't printed or bought from a vendor.

The mounting question is where I went a different direction too. I hung mine off the peak of the garage with two eye bolts and a pair of small carabiners, so it comes down in about a minute when the wind kicks up. Around here November gusts will rip anything loose right off a fence rail, ask me how I know.

The pixel layout part I do get. I mapped my drilled holes on graph paper first and it made sequencing so much easier than guessing. Your chase idea against a solid backdrop is exactly the kind of contrast I aim for too. Mine runs a slow two color wipe most nights and the neighbors' kids apparently wait for it on the school bus.

Those mounted look sharp. I did my snowflake years ago out of coroplast and a marker template traced off a cardboard cutout, poked the holes with an awl heated over the stove. Worked fine but it got brittle after two winters in the sun and I retired it. Wondering how the printed ones hold up long term up on a tree top where the wind relly leans on them. Also curious what your standoff is from the tree peak, my star always wanted to wobble untill I braced it back with a stick of furring strip.

Grabbed the files, thanks. One thing that bit me on my own printed props is leaving a channel for the wiring. My first coro-to-print conversion had me zipping the pigtail down flat against the backer and the wind worked it loose enough to pull a couple nodes half out by mid season. Now I print a shallow groove down one arm and loop a service loop where the string enters the prop. Also worth weighing, at that size mine wanted to sail in a good gust until I added a couple drain holes and a wider bottom mount. Curious how yours handled the wind up on the tree peak.

Yeah the chamfer trick is the real fix, I came to the same conclusion on a set of printed mini stars last fall. My first batch of holes were hair too small and I bent two legs on test nodes trying to force them. Ran a few single-arm test prints with slightly different offsets before committing to the full prop, which saved me from reprinting the whole thing a third time. One test piece takes twenty minutes, the full star takes a weekend. Also second the earlier point about leaving a wiring channel, zipping the pigtail flat to the backer is exactly how I lost a node halfway through December a couple years back.