Candlelit Snowflake House Decoration

This house is not limited to just candles! Even though this house was originally designed it to house a candle, as shown in the pictures, you can fill this house with anything, it is extremely versatile, so you can showcase your Christmas Spirit in a way that is unique to you! Below are some ideas of what you can do

• Fill the inside with Christmas lights
• Stuff your favorite wreath material inside, you can even use colors other than green along with other filament colors to create your favorite color combinations
• Pause the prints midway and swap filaments to get a snowflake house with one color on the outside and another color on the inside
• Print with a transparent filament to allow for the lights to look even better
• Just leave it empty and let the model be a display piece by itself

If you print this, please post a make, leave a like, and comment. I would love to see someone else print this and get some feedback maybe.

If you have any suggestions, ideas or comments, please let me know!

I did not glue the model in this video together.

When trying to think of a design for the 2024 Christmas design contest, one of my original ideas was a snowflake Christmas tree with each individual snowflake being able to spin, however I later realized that a snowflake Christmas tree had already been made by Tomcat54, 3DPrintBunny, and multiple other people as well.

Eventually, I had given up on designing anything for the contest… until I had a brilliant lightbulb go off out of the blue. Thus, the snowflake candlelit house was born. Designing took a while because a large chunk of the designing process was spent designing how the pieces would connect. With parts that are so thin, it is tough to design an easily printable connection part. So, I ended up designing the connecting parts to be merely placeholders while the entire assembly is glued together.

After printing the parts, I realized that gluing the assembly is not required, because the assembly holds together by itself, and all the pictures and videos were taken without gluing the model together. However, I still recommend gluing the assembly to avoid problems.

DO NOT GLUE THE FRONT PIECE. This piece is meant to be removable so that you can replace the candle thingy.

DO NOT USE A FLAME CANDLE. Doing so will result in the plastic melting and result in a possible fire hazard; using an electric tealight will suffice. I got my candle from my local dollar store. Moreover, using an electric candle will allow you to achieve better brightnesses, and still cast a homely snowflake shadow on the wall.

IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE LIGHTS, DO NOT LEAVE THEM ON. While you may want to leave the lights on to showcase your Christmas Spirit, doing so may also result in a fire hazard, so please be mindful about how long you have the lights on.

Files:

I have included a file with a candle holder. A file without a candle holder, for filling with Christmas lights, wreath material, or anything else you want. Files for both the candle holder and non-candle holder versions arranged in the orientations I printed them in. I have also included a file that does not have a candleholder and is not cut so it is just one whole piece for easier remixing.

Printing:

I printed everything on my Elegoo Neptune 4, with stock Orcaslicer .2 profile, only changing the temperature on the filament to be 220 deg C, adding a 5mm brim, and using 0% infill.

Filament-Elegoo White PLA
Layer height-0.2mm
Infill-0%
Brim-Optional (I used one, although I did print a few panels with no brim)
Support-Required (unless your printer is capable of really long bridges)
First Layer Height: 0.2mm
Perimeters: 3
Top Solid Layers: 4
Bottom Solid Layers: 3

These are my settings and are merely suggestions for your convenience

Assembly:   (I look forward to uploading and assembly video although I cannot do so right now)

1. Glue the right roof panel to the right-side panel via the connector.
2. Glue the left roof panel to the left-side panel via the connector.
3. Glue the right-side assembly to the bottom panel.
4. Glue the left-side assembly to the right side and bottom panel via the connectors.
5. Place the back panel on its back so the holes are facing up, and glue the entire assembly (except the front panel) into the connectors.
6. Put your decor of choice inside, attach the front, and enjoy!

Tips and notes:

• I do not suggest scaling down, as doing so may result in the connecting parts becoming too small to be efficient.
• Everything has a tolerance of .4 (.2 on each side).
• I accidentally purchased an RGB candle when I went to purchase a candle, so that is why the colors across the photos might not be consistent.

Good luck to all downloaders out there, and happy printing.