https://youtu.be/nke7eUzGSEg

I purchased one of the German Christmas Carousel's this year and thought I would try and design my own version so I could keep it out all year long.

This design uses 14mm Carousel candles available on Amazon, I tried regular tea lights and they did not give off enough heat to rotate the blades. I couldn't locate any candle liners so I made my own from aluminum foil and punch tool.

This does of course require live flames, so do not leave unattended when using. I have gone through quite a few candles now without any issue, but of course be careful and keep and eye on it.

I originally printed the fan blades from PLA+ but they began to warp from the heat, I reprinted them from 3DXTech ASA material and they have been holding up without issue. ABS may also work for these, but I have not tried that. The other issue I had with heat was when the candles burned all the way down they would really heat up the foil and on my original design began to melt the PLA since it was in direct contact. I added a copper coupling to elevate the candle and help dissipate the heat and this has been holding up nicely. I can burn the candles completely down without issue now.

I have attached some assembly instructions if anybody wants to try making one, friction is the enemy, so everything needs to spin nice and free.

I went with a PacMan theme for mine, but kept the design open so you can attach whatever theme you want.

I used the ghosts from andrewisme scaled 65% for the top and 90% for the lower scared ghost
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2840173/files

And Pacman from Zarbuta scaled 90%
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2833881

The Pellets I modeled up and attached the STL