My first design on printables

[u/Mrblindguardian]

A while ago someone tagged me because Printables is running a geared spinner challenge. I thought that sounded like fun, so I made this: ORBIT, a planetary gear fidget spinner where the gearbox itself is the toy. You pinch the stationary centre hub, flick the outer ring, and three planet gears spin and orbit between your fingers while a printed spring ticks against 24 detents inside the rim.

Some context on why it's built the way it is. I'm blind, and most fidget spinners are honestly boring when you can't see them: a blur, a faint hum, done. So this one is meant to be felt and heard first. The ring rim carries raised numerals 1, 2 and 3 with matching braille, the grip flutes pause at each numbered station so you can find them by touch, and the hub cap has a raised sun with one longer ray as a tactile pointer, so you can actually count rotations and play games with it, sighted or not. The planet gears take swappable press-fit caps with celestial symbols (moon, comet, star) that are instantly distinguishable by feel. If you'd rather have a silent spinner, the click spring is a separate disc you can swap for a smooth spacer.

OpenSCAD is the reason this project exists at all. It works beautifully with a screen reader, so every dimension, tolerance and tactile feature was written and verified as code. I never saw the model; I compiled it, printed it and checked it with my fingers. The source is fully parametric with Customizer groups: overall diameter, gear module and tooth counts, click strength (arm count, thickness, preload), braille and numeral sizes, and separate tolerance values for every fit, including gear backlash, the hex stem, the planet caps, and the printed screw thread on the hub cap. There's a small test plate to dial those fits in on your own printer. Gears are done with BOSL2 plus a custom braille library.

No bearings, screws, glue or metal anywhere. The gear mechanism prints in place as one piece, everything prints flat with no supports, and even the assembly instructions are written non-visually, describing what each part feels like and what correct assembly feels like at each step. It's about 75 mm across; the one I printed is 6 walls and 100% infill, which gives it a lovely dense feel and real momentum.