The Awesome Dremel Devil

Dan Spengler at Make wrote of an incredibly interesting 3D printing project: the Dremel Devil Flying Ring.

As are most revolutionary inventions, the Dremel Devil came about purely by accident. In a prior project, Spengler had to construct a fan to cool an electric motor. He designed and 3D printed such a fan, but testing was not going well because the motor wasn’t spinning the fan quickly. 

In a fit of genius, Spengler put the fan on his Dremel, a handheld multi-use rotational tool. Here’s what happened next: 

I was pushing the slider switch all the way to 30,000 when suddenly the fan took off like a rocket and crashed into the whiteboard at the end of the room, shattering into a dozen pieces and leaving a fresh dent. I sat there stunned, until the proverbial light bulb in my head went ding!

Quickly redesigning the fan for “launch purposes”, he printed a new version and went outside with his portable dremel and the new “Devil”. The Devil easily flew up to 200ft (61m). 

The full instructions and 3D model are freely available at Thingiverse. But a word of caution: this Devil apparently flies “like a missile”, so please be extremely careful what you do with it. 

What makes us particularly interested in this project is that it may be the first item in a new class of 3D models. One can imagine all kinds of unique designs for Dremel-powered 3D printed items, perhaps even multiple-object designs or stages like a rocket. 

Let’s get designing! 

Via MAKE and Thingiverse