# 3D-Printed Turtle House



## kameya (Oct 27, 2015)

I have recently acquired a decent 3D printer for my personal DIY hobby interest, and I thought it might be neat to print some small turtle/tortoise shelters for my baby turtles.

Here is the first turtle house I printed for a little boxie. The size is about 5" wide x 4" deep x 3" high.




The turtle shelter is placed inside a shoebox-sized plastic container. I try to keep the habitat as simple as possible for the little. The only thing I am doing is adding food on the daily basis and change the water in the container every couple days.




You can find out more about the my *shoebox habitat design* in the following link...
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/eastern-painted-turtle-simple-habitat-setup.59629/


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## johnandjade (Oct 27, 2015)

great idea! have you thought about custom orders?


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## kameya (Oct 27, 2015)

johnandjade said:


> great idea! have you thought about custom orders?


Due to the size of the object, the cost of shipping would probably be the same or even more (locationwise) than the cost of the product... but we can work out on the details if you are interested.


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## wellington (Oct 27, 2015)

Those are pretty cool printers. Bet you have lots of fun with it. Pretty cool you can make your own turtle hides


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## johnandjade (Oct 27, 2015)

kameya said:


> Due to the size of the object, the cost of shipping would probably be the same or even more (locationwise) than the cost of the product... but we can work out on the details if you are interested.




im in Scotland, a hobbit hole is jades goal . might be an idea to patent the idea for a'print off business plan?


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## Anyfoot (Oct 27, 2015)

kameya said:


> I have recently acquired a decent 3D printer for my personal DIY hobby interest, and I thought it might be neat to print some small turtle/tortoise shelters for my baby turtles.
> 
> Here is the first turtle house I printed for a little boxie. The size is about 5" wide x 4" deep x 3" high.
> 
> ...


Nice, I have got to get myself one of those printers. Looks fun.


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## kameya (Oct 27, 2015)

Great...if you do get one then you can go to this 3D printer community site to download the file I created and print one for yourself... ^_^

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1092667


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## Anyfoot (Oct 27, 2015)

kameya said:


> Great...if you do get one then you can go to this 3D printer community site to download the file I created and print one for yourself... ^_^
> 
> http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1092667


So basically, you load a cad drawing file into the 3d printer, and walla, it does it for you.


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## kameya (Oct 27, 2015)

In a nutshell...YES...but it depends on the type of printers you got. You may have to go through some learning pains with your printer before it becomes your best robot friend...but it's worth it... ^_^


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## Anyfoot (Oct 27, 2015)

kameya said:


> In a nutshell...YES...but it depends on the type of printers you got. You may have to go through some learning pains with your printer before it becomes your best robot friend...but it's worth it... ^_^


So what type of cad drw files does yours accept. I got to get one of these. Do you think Santa will fit it down our chimney.


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## kameya (Oct 28, 2015)

I believe most of CAD programs can save export file as the *.STL* format, and that's file format most of the 3D printers will accept. You might want to ask the Santa to deliver it to you via front door...as it's a fragile piece of equipment... ^_^


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## Anyfoot (Oct 28, 2015)

kameya said:


> I believe most of CAD programs can save export file as the *.STL* format, and that's file format most of the 3D printers will accept. You might want to ask the Santa to deliver it to you via front door...as it's a fragile piece of equipment... ^_^


He has a skeleton key for our house. 
Ho ho ho.


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## Anyfoot (Oct 28, 2015)

kameya said:


> I believe most of CAD programs can save export file as the *.STL* format, and that's file format most of the 3D printers will accept. You might want to ask the Santa to deliver it to you via front door...as it's a fragile piece of equipment... ^_^


What model printer have you got? Just had a look, some are very expensive. Are the cheaper ones any good?


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## kameya (Oct 28, 2015)

ROBO3D R1 PLUS...JUST A TAP UNDER 1K...


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## kameya (Oct 29, 2015)

Here is the second turtle house I made using the 3D printer. This size is about 8" wide x 8" deep x 8" high, it should be a good size for little tortoises. Vinyl door panels are attached to the front entrance to create a little micro-climate environment inside the habitat.




The reason I created this one is to replace my favorite cinder block shelter. The cinder block is great for outdoor habitat, however, it became too bulky and heavy in my limited-space indoor habitat. This tortoise house I created is basically the same size as the typical cinder block, but the wall is much thinner and smoother, which gives the tortoises more space inside the shelter and I can keep their shell nice and shiny with the smooth plastic interior.


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## Anyfoot (Oct 29, 2015)

kameya said:


> Here is the second turtle house I made using the 3D printer. This size is about 8" wide x 8" deep x 8" high, it should be a good size for little tortoises. Vinyl door panels are attached to the front entrance to create a little micro-climate environment inside the habitat.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nice. Look very interesting. How long does it take the printer to produce that hide?


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## kameya (Oct 29, 2015)

This one took about 16 hours to print...the blue one is about 8 hours...it all depends on the sizes and the complexity of the models....


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## Foursteels (Oct 29, 2015)

It would be really cool to see a video of how the 3D printer works to make the tortoise hides. They really add an artistic touch to the enclosure.


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## kameya (Nov 2, 2015)

I am in the process of making another turtle hideout, and thanks to @Foursteels advice, I took a one-minute-long clip that shows the 3D printing process...it's like a brick wall building process, building one layer on top of another layer, just in much smaller scale. This design will take about 10 hours to print. I will share the final build once it gets done... ^_^


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## Foursteels (Nov 2, 2015)

kameya said:


> I am in the process of making another turtle hideout, and thanks to @Foursteels advice, I took a one-minute-long clip that shows the 3D printing process...it's like a brick wall building process, building one layer on top of another layer, just in much smaller scale. This design will take about 10 hours to print. I will share the final build once it gets done... ^_^



That looks really interesting. Did you start off with that piece of molding in the device and then it shaves it away to make your form?


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## Anyfoot (Nov 2, 2015)

kameya said:


> I am in the process of making another turtle hideout, and thanks to @Foursteels advice, I took a one-minute-long clip that shows the 3D printing process...it's like a brick wall building process, building one layer on top of another layer, just in much smaller scale. This design will take about 10 hours to print. I will share the final build once it gets done... ^_^


 That's amazing, love technology. Thanks for sharing. 

About 5yrs ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a engineering research centre. I was like a kid in a candy store. 
They had a 3D printing machine set up in its own room. 
This machine printed in steel though. It was amazing. You didn't even have to load a cad drg into it. The example was. A wooden model elephant inside another wooden elephant. 
They placed that into 1 half of the machine. It scanned it in 3D then generated its own drg. From this it created a programme to copy it by laying layer upon layer of steel as it built the new model. Each layer was 0.025mm/0.001" thick. The end product was a perfect copy, but in steel. They hadn't at that time mastered a smooth surface finish though. It looked like cast iron. 
Who knows what's to come in the future. 
Maybe a Tortoise replicating machine. Lol


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## kameya (Nov 2, 2015)

Foursteels said:


> That looks really interesting. Did you start off with that piece of molding in the device and then it shaves it away to make your form?



You can probably look on other youtube video about 3D printing, but basically "3D printing is additive manufacturing that takes computer models, and turns them into real, physical things. It takes plastic filament, melts it down into a thin layer onto a surface, moves up, and lays another layer on top – kind of like a hot glue gun affect. After layer upon layer, you are left with an an object that is very durable and long lasting."


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## Anyfoot (Nov 2, 2015)

kameya said:


> You can probably look on other youtube video about 3D printing, but basically "3D printing is additive manufacturing that takes computer models, and turns them into real, physical things. It takes plastic filament, melts it down into a thin layer onto a surface, moves up, and lays another layer on top – kind of like a hot glue gun affect. After layer upon layer, you are left with an an object that is very durable and long lasting."


Did you draw that model you are making now, or do you have to download a file from a website.


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## kameya (Nov 2, 2015)

So far I cannot find any models on the 3D printing sites that offer any sort of the turtle house designs, so I am designing my own turtle house using CAD software and printing the house from scratch.


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## Anyfoot (Nov 2, 2015)

kameya said:


> So far I cannot find any models on the 3D printing sites that offer any sort of the turtle house designs, so I am designing my own turtle house using CAD software and printing the house from scratch.


So if you(anybody) are capable of using a cad system, you can import the 3D drg as a stl and it will print out your 3D drg.


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## kameya (Nov 2, 2015)

Usually the 3D printer you purchased will come with a 3D software that allows you to import STL file (generated by most CAD software) onto your 3D printer, and your printer will then turn the virtual object into the 3D-printed object.


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## kameya (Nov 4, 2015)

This is my half-log turtle's hideout design...the size is about 7"x7"x3.5"H




I've added some accessory holes on top where I can attach small accessories like habitat sign and small decor items...


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## kameya (Nov 10, 2015)

The 3D-printed Turtle Habitat finally get its first resident... ^_^




This little guy usually stay in its outdoor habitat, but since it will not hibernate in the winter thus I brought it in to keep it indoor until the next spring.


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## Oxalis (Jan 21, 2016)

kameya said:


> The 3D-printed Turtle Habitat finally get its first resident... ^_^
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That is just adorable!  Love your adaptation of the 3-D printer.


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## kameya (Jan 28, 2016)

Here is a New Project...

So this is what I got before...a 3D-printed turtle house and the feeding dish...but I found the round feeding dish + the stepping stones take up too much water space, thus I've decided to work on a new design to combine both elements...




And this is what I came up with, a feeding platform with a built-in walking ramp... this little platform is about 4"x3"x.625"H...




Now attaching the new feeding platform to the existing clear shoebox habitat...




and watchinbg how the little boxie is climbing up to its new feeding ground... ^_^




This is just one of the small projects I like to work on to simplify my turtle caring routines... ^_^


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## GotTort (Jan 28, 2016)

Pretty awesome!


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## Oxalis (Jan 31, 2016)

Awesome job and great creativity!


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## von345 (Feb 15, 2016)

This is so cool! Great idea


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