Flexi Tulle Snake

I've become a big fan of printing with Tulle ever since I found out you can make “floating” jewelry with it, “floating” masquerade masks, and use it as an accept in jewelry. 

The other day, I was trying to think of how to recreate a flexible floppy wooden snake toy I remembered playing with when I was little. I first experimented with using regular PLA filament and just “breaking” the joints, and while the test did work, the second attempt with a silky PLA did not work and I decided it wasn't worth the headache. 

I knew I could try flexible TPU filament, but first I wanted to figure out how to make it work with PLA. Then I thought TULLE! So I designed the snake to print on its side and added tulle halfway through the print. These designs are meant to work with .2mm layers. 

Add a pause in the printing process AFTER the 2nd overhang layer. This allows for two layers of printing below and above the tulle. While the print has overhangs in the body, make sure you DO NOT have support along the center of the snake. You'll likely need it for the tail tho (check out the photos of the slicer). The overhang is slight enough that you won't need the support. 

I put down 4 pieces of tulle instead of just 1 to give it extra durability and it has actually held up pretty well, especially considering how rough my daughter is with things I give her. 

On the Prusa MK3 with support, you can print it in just a few minutes over 5 hours. You should shrink it just a tidge and get it under 5 hours I also have smaller versions that take much less time. The Shortened Snake or you could think of it as a worm, takes 3 hours. 

Optionally, I designed a hole in the head where you could stick in a piece of filament for the tongue!

Takes 1h 40m on the Bambu X1 Carbon. 

Created in Tinkercad.

Instructables Tutorial with complete details: https://www.instructables.com/Flexi-Snake/

Also, I'm entering this in the Quick flexis contest since it is just about 5 hours on the Prusa (less than 5 hours on the Bambu), has versions that can be printed in less than 5 hours, and I wasn't sure if a tulle hinge would count. 

I've made an articulated version of this for a print in place version that doesn't require tulle: https://www.printables.com/model/502380-articulated-snake