Inspired by the many beautiful Advent calendars in Makerworld (in particular through the model of wwgal73), ...which are often a little too small, I made this illuminated Advent calendar.

Dimensions:

• Model aprox. HxWxD: 47x43x15 cm
• Inner box aprox. HxWxD: 4.5x4.5x6.5 cm

Used Filaments:

• PLA Basic
• PLA Matte
• PETG (transparent)

Used Build Plates:

• Cool Plate / PLA Plate
• Engeeniering Plate
• Textured PEI Plate

Used Settings:

Printers: X1, X1C, X1E, P1S, P1P, A1 (Remark: Print Profile is NOT suitable for A1 mini)

Plate Type:

• Printer Plate Type (Global Setting): Cool Plate / PLA Plate
• Fix Printer Plate Type Engineering: Plate 1, 2:
• Fix Printer Plate Type Textured PEI: Plate 8, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18

Process Global:

• 0.20mm Standard

Process Objects:

• Sparse Infill Density 10%: Plate 6, 7, 11
• Top Surface Pattern Hilbert Curve: Plate 11
• Sparse Infill Pattern Gyroid: Plate 11
• Layer Height 0.08 mm: Plate 12, 13, 14, 15
• Print Sequence by Object: Plate 12, 13, 14, 15

Shopping List:

• LED Mini Fairy Lights for the lighting (e.g. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Battery-Waterproof-Christmas-Lighting-Decoration/dp/B0BLYQGD2Z/

Assembly:

The assembly is simple and needs no special explanation. However, there are simple assembly instructions in the attached PDF. I've used Textured PEI (Gold), Cool and Engineering plates, and PLA Basic and PLA Matte as filament. To let the light shine through, I've used transparent PETG for the middle part. If you use other filaments, you can find test frames in the Print Profile (plates 19 and 20). Use them to check whether assembly is possible before you start printing everything. When assembling, you may need glue for the inside of the door and the door handle. To make the Advent calendar more stable, the “surprise” boxes can be glued to the tree structure.

There is a small compartment behind the advent calendar for the On/off switch of the LED mini fairy lights mentioned above.

I've used different colors for the door handles, so I've printed them by object. You can of course use a single color and print all 24 handles by layer on one plate.
The elements for the tree (front, middle and rear parts) are designed to interlock when assembled. So don't be surprised by the design of the parts.

In one case (plate 8) I had an adhesion problem on the Textured PEI plate and had to use liquid glue. Please check the printing quality during the first layers.

Interested in more of my 3D-models?

Check out https://makerworld.com/en/@mplusm