3D Printed Beyblade Arena
Some time ago my children wanted beyblades and an arena for Christmas. The joy was great and they started immediately with hard Beyblade battles.
Unfortunately it turned out that the arena (which was only made of very thin deep-drawn plastic) could not withstand the elemental force of the Beyblades or my children for long. The Beyblades had punched first holes into the walls of the arena. After a reclamation the manufacturer provided a replacement without any problems. But it did not last much longer although I had tried to reinforce the arena by foaming.
After some back and forth, I decided to design an arena and print it with the 3D printer I bought a few months earlier.
Design With Fusion 360
During the development of the 3D model I took different approaches, designed it in Fusion 360 and then analyzed it in the slicer regarding print time and material consumption. In addition I wanted to achieve the best possible surface quality with a reasonable print time - so the target was to have a resolution of 0.2mm and no support structures on the surface.
As mentioned before I chose different approaches, so I started with a more or less identical copy of the deep-drawn arena. But it turned out to be not very suitable for 3D printing. After some iterations the current design has evolved (see big picture on the left). Thanks to the version control of Fusion 360 I can also show some pre-versions here (see smaller images on the right).
Since the size of the arena exceeds the building space of my printer, I also had to think about splitting it into several components and how to align and assemble them. I used tongue and groove to align the parts accordingly. Unfortunately I didn't know exactly about the tolerances of my printer at that time, so I had to rework (grind) the parts. During the first printing tests of the walls it turned out that they detached from the printing bed due to their size. I was able to solve the problem by using additional vertical splits.
Printing
All the parts can be printed without supports (see screenshots of the slicer). I used a layer height of 0.2mm and an additional brim to improve the binding to the printing bed. To build the arena you will need 2 pieces of each part. As alread mentioned I tried to optimize the amount of filament needed, nevertheless this is a quite filament consuming project.
Post Print Treatment and Assembly
After printing all parts, I first assembled the floor. To do this, the parts are arranged correctly, glued (with 2 component glue) and screwed together (with M3 screws and nuts).
After that I tried to make the surface of the recess in the floor as smooth as possible with putty, filler and grinding. This is necessary, since this part has a distinct step shape due to the coarse resolution of the print. I also painted the floor (with acrylic spray paint).
Then the walls are glued and screwed together (M3 screws and nuts). Finally the upper and lower part are connected with 3x20mm screws. I did not paint the upper part because I used blue filament.
Finished Arena
This is my biggest self-designed 3D printing project so far (overall size 536 x 371 x 120mm). The arena is made of several parts because I wanted to minimize the amount of material. Nevertheless this is a quite filament consuming project but I really like the result and my children are happy. On the left: Fusion 360 rendering, on the right: real arena.
The arena has been in use for more than a year now, has survived the wildest Beyblade fights and, apart from a few minor scratches, has performed its duties flawlessly.