Origami Valentine's Day Heart

Assembly

Pay very close attention to the details below, as they are vital for the printing of effective hinges on the top and bottom of the model.

While we did print ours in PLA, PETG will likely yield more robust results, due to its greater flexibility.

In order to produce living hinges that can last dozens of folds, it's important that break up the 0.2mm of layer into two 0.1mm layers that go opposite each other:
1. Set the layer height of the bottom 0.2mm to 0.1mm through a height modifier

2. Set the layer height of the top 0.2mm to 0.1mm through a height modifier, as shown:

3. Set the infill direction to 90 degrees to ensure that the hinge axes are perpendicular to the filament axes (you may need to set this to 0 degrees if your build plate or model is aligned differently)

4. Once printed, follow this video for how to properly bias the hinges:

Learn More

To learn more about compliant mechanisms in general, see the BYU Compliant Mechanisms and Robotics (CMR) website or these books: Compliant Mechanisms, Handbook of Compliant Mechanisms