Faceted Bowl and Vase

When I designed this bowl and vase, I was going for a 'cut glass' look. These were both printed on my FlyingBear P902 printer with transparent PLA filaments. The bowl measures 165 mm dia. at the base, 196 mm dia. at the top, is 100 mm tall, and has a maximum diameter of 217 mm. The vase measures 56 mm dia. at the top and bottom, is 170 mm tall, and has a maximum diameter of 78.5 mm.

UPDATE 12/26/2019: I made a few small changes to the STL model of the bowl. (The new file has the name 'Faceted Bowl 2'.) In this new model, the overhang angle of the lower faces of the second and third row of facets is a bit steeper, which should help it print better. Also, the bowl is no longer lying on its side. Otherwise, the new bowl is identical to the old one.

Note that the STL models are solid; that is, in the STL models, the bowl and vase are not hollowed out. To print them properly, you MUST use the 'spiralize' or 'vase-mode' settings in your slicer. This setting will not print any infill or top to the bowl or vase, but will print a bottom. (If you are not sure how to use the 'spiralize' or 'vase-mode' settings in your slicer, a search on Google will direct you to a number of instructional sites as well as videos.)

I used my 2012 copy of Alibre Design to create these models. For my slicer, I used Cura 2.4, which I am really growing to like.

With a maximum diameter of 217 mm, the bowl was really pushing the XY limits of my FlyingBear print area, which is 220 mm square. I found that my Cura slicer would not even try to slice the print until I disabled the skirt function under 'Build Plate Adhesion'. This is despite the fact that the size of the skirt (which would have been three lines, 3mm from the 165 mm diameter base) would have been well within the build plate area. To me, this appears to be a bug in the software.

Besides having the Cura 'spiralize' setting turned on, my layer height was 0.3 mm, my line width was 0.6 mm, and my bottom thickness was 0.9 mm (or three layers). To eliminate a z-hop bug that occurs when using 'spiralize' with Cura 2.4, I also set the 'Outer Wall Wipe Distance' to 0.

If your printer has a smaller build area than my FlyingBear (which is 220 x 220 x 270 mm), just scale the models down with your slicer so that they fit into your build area.

Another thing worthy of note is that one my first print of the vase, I increased my (usual) print speed from 60 mm/sec. to 80 mm/sec. I noticed that at this speed, the print looked OK, but the facets didn't seem as sharp as I would have liked. Also, there was a bit of 'ringing' in the facets as well. When I reduced my print speed back to 60 mm/sec., the facets looked significantly sharper, and the 'ringing' was much less evident. Also, the walls looked more transparent. As I am typing this, I am printing the vase at 40 mm/sec. to see how much it improves. So far, it is looking quite a bit better. It is possible that since I am using a transparent filament, these things might show up more than normal.

And who knows, maybe someday I will learn how to model something in my CAD software so that when I post it on Thingiverse, it wll not be lying on its side. But apparently, not today.

If anyone has any questions about either of these Things, please post them in the comments and I will do my best to answer.