LED Sword Keychain Wearabl

For this project I wanted to learn how to utilize a 3D printer and basic circuitry to create a cool keychain wearable. The goal was to create a sword keychain from one of my favorite games "Final Fantasy". I started this project by playing around in Tinkercad to see how basic 3D modeling worked; I would later use a 3D modeling website called Thingiverse to find a 3D model of a sword from Final Fantasy that I could then edit to make a keychain. I then made a simple circuit for an LED light that could be switched on an off.

This project relied on 3D printing and LED lighting. The 3D model was taken from a 3D modeling website called Thingiverse. From that model I added a ring on the handle so that it could be made into a key chain and resized it to be bigger to hold an LED between two swords. The model was printed using PLA filament on a Creality Ender 3. The lighting was created using a coin cell battery, 3V LED, and wiring. Assembly was done by using a hot glue gun, soldering, and tape.

I started this project by playing around in Tinkercad to see how basic 3D modeling worked. Due to time constraints and skills I decided to pivot to using Thingiverse to find a model that I could 3D print.

I really enjoy the franchise Final Fantasy, so I chose the buster sword that Cloud uses as my model. I downloaded the file in stl. and brought it to my school's print lab. Once I saved the file on my drive I put it into the print labs computers and opened my file in Cura. I duplicated the model so that there were two swords because I envisioned putting the LED light source in the middle of the two swords. I created a raft to support my two swords and from their I uploaded the file on a Micro SD card so that I could put the chip inside the 3D modeling machine.

I picked translucent glow in the dark material to make my model because in the games the main character's sword glows bright blue. Once I picked my material and put the Micro SD card inside the 3D printer we chose my file and began printing. The print took around 3 hours to craft and was a success. I was able to pull the swords out of the raft mold and the swords glowed bright blue in the dark.

The problem I ran into, however, was that my model was too small to hold a battery and LED light. It also didn't have a loop at the handle of the sword which was a problem because its original intention was to be made as a keychain. I proceeded to put my model in Thingiverse, added a donut shape around the handle, and made the swords nearly three times the size of the first model.

I then repeated the printing process I did with the first model except this time I printed the model standing vertically instead of laying flat because my teacher said it would be faster and require less raft. This time the model took about 5 hours to print. When the model was complete I took them out of the raft molds and now had the perfect model for adding circuitry.

For the LED lights I soldered a switch to a wire, the switch to a different wire, the wire to the LED light, and another wire to the LED light (three wires, one switch, one LED light). I then taped the two free hanging wires to a battery with electrical tape to make sure the positive side of the battery is connected to the longer prong of the LED light and the negative side of the battery is connected to the shorter prong of the light. Lastly, I wrapped the battery and wiring in black electrical tape to make it more compact and cleaner.

Once the model and lights were completed, I super glued the two swords together with the light sandwiched in between. This was the final step and I now had a key chain of two swords with a light between that I could control with a switch.