When you have a gazillion hobby projects lined up but just want something simple: construct a bird feeding station :-)
(our current one is literally the lid of a plastic paint bucket with a screw through the middle. "Yeah I'll make something nice this winter" I said in 2020)
Day two on project OpenBirdFeeder.
Made a base that fits over 50mm poles. The resulting print is a very satisfying hunk of material. It contains a holder for a 10mm bar (which I had laying around from a project on a cargobike cover) of which seed-bags can be hung.
For the roof I designed a nice Pantheon style dome but on getting ready to print realized it'll take a LOT of plastic. Felt a bit wasteful so instead the roof will be flat using a 3D printed frame holding a repurposed plastic sheet.
Designed the roof yesterday and had it printed tonight. Testing with a stunt-bird makes me think this works.
edit: I'm aware this is mixing various architectural styles. Unfortunately that's what the birds like.
Project OpenBirdFeeder (has a proper ring to it) / BirdShitCastle3000 (more realistic naming) is ready for painting & final assembly.
All the parts (13x 3D printed parts, some plastic sheet from an old IKEA door, multiplex plate, 4x bit of electric tubing, 10mm aluminum rod) are ready and fit.
Next phase is painting (mainly to make it weather proof, probably all grey as that's at hand) and deciding which parts of the top to glue together.
Kinda happy with my garden folly already though :-)
The base is very functional and fits over any 50mm pole. Might also be practical for other projects.
After I've finished the entire thing I'll see where I can release the construction plan, list of materials and .stl files. Apparently there's a fedi integrated file sharing project so I'll look into that (instead of printables, thingverse etc).
The entire feeder is cheap in printed materials btw. No massive blocks of plastic for supports, or for stuff that can just as well be another material.
OpenBirdFeeder / BirdShitCastle3000 update:
Thinking of the Roman Empire this morning I figured it's actually easy to do a 3D printed slanted roof without waste. Solution is to make it in two parts and print upside down.
So I did that and glued (cyanoacrylate, not sure if that's actually glueing) the parts. I also primed and painted the assembly. Lowest bits are flush with the openings in the sides so no standing water. For summer I'll design a bird bath add-on.
As a "primarily desk based worker" an absolute killer benefit of primarily working from home is "second laptop" to do a project on when meetings go at a snails' pace both time and depth wise.
Today the #BirdShitCastle3000 got a star sculpture for its pediment / gable.
The anti-squirrel-climbing device I painted yesterday is drying well.
All painted and assembled. Am still not happy with the blue but it's what I had available. In the physical the thing looks good and will stand out nicely in the green garden.
I'm now letting the paint harden a bit. In a day or two I'll give it two layers of transparent weather / UV coating. Then it goes outside and it's up to the birds to destroy it..
And the final result placed in the #garden. With the first bird* is already using it!
Such a massive improvement over what we used to have.
*it's a test bird from our coop.
Here's a video of the bird using the feeder. Appears to work.
Fyi. Some people showed interest in building one. I'll upload the .stl files and other required materials at a later time.
Attached a bill of materials for the various build options.
I've uploaded the .stl files to Printables as the 3DPrint.social #manyfold instance appears to be down. https://www.printables.com/model/1565794-openbirdfeeder-birdshitcastle3000
Please share a photo if you construct one yourself :-)
@caffetino Our chicken are used to high stress environments..
Pepijn
Caz Mockett
caffetino