6 mm Ball-Joint Crystal Dragon, 42 Segments

A print-in-place articulated dragon built on 6 mm balls in 7 mm sockets, with faceted hexagonal crystal clusters on the head, spine, legs and tail tip.

Fit and clearance

• Joint: 6 mm ball in a 7 mm socket (0.5 mm radial clearance), 5 mm neck opening so the ball cannot pull out.
• Chain: 42 body segments at 12 mm pitch, plus four legs of two segments each.
• Check before printing: the laid-out dragon is roughly 350 mm long in its S-curve, so verify your bed size or scale it down in the slicer. Scaling below about 80% closes the 0.5 mm clearance.

Not suited to

• Printers with a bed under about 250 mm without rescaling.
• Printing the crystals first: the model lies flat on the bed, crystals pointing up, flat horns on the bed.
• Fast, uncooled printing: joint gaps need slow, well-cooled layers.