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Does the title of this week’s Thing of the Week feel too forced? We were trying to be lovely… fine, I’ll see myself out of here.

But before I do, let’s take a look at Spike_Mix’s Gear heart fidget toy keychain. That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? But it gets the point across. If you’re wondering why it’s this week’s pick, well, you might want to check a calendar and make sure you don’t have a date on Friday you’re not ready for…

Why did we go for it? We like fidget toys. The design makes sense, given the date. As clear a Venn diagram as it can be!

So, whether you’ve got a date this Friday and you forgot to get them something, you’d like to complement the gift with something that shows off your skills, and that can be fun to fidget with, or you just want to get it for yourself for a bit of self-appreciation, go for it!

That said, if the two caps (to keep the gears in place) aren’t to your liking, the designer included versions of the keychain with a different setup, as well as doing without them altogether. And if a (slightly) bulky keychain isn’t what you (or your intended) are after, there’s also a version without the keyring hoop.

Printing Tips

Did you do a double-take between the lead image of the article and the one directly above these words? Are you wondering why there are gears with different colors? No, we didn’t print them twice. We simply used Bambu Lab’s Dynamic PLA, which unfortunately appears to have been discontinued.

It’s a material that changes color depending on the temperature, so it started out white (due to the heated nozzle and bed), turned pink, and finally settled on purple when it reached the cooler room temperature. A neat trick about using this type of filament for this kind of design is that the more you turn the gears, the more the print warms up, and the model changes color. That’s a nice way of seeing how much fidgeting you (or someone) are doing. The base was done with Polymaker’s PolyTerra PLA just because we liked the color combination.

But back to the printing tips. We went for a mega-streamlined experience: Bambu Studio, Bambu Lab A1, Bambu Lab AMS. No, this isn’t an ad for Bambu Lab, it’s just the comfort of such a setup, we won’t lie about it. The only change that was done from the default settings was to lower the layer height to 0.15 mm because we wanted it to be as neat as possible (and gears can sometimes be tricky to get to work correctly, so a lower resolution can be helpful).

A slight issue? The base of the bigger gear shows some warping, and if it were meant as a gift (instead of a fidget toy yours truly keeps), we’d probably reprint it. It was still impossibly easy to put together and to get to spin, so no complaints there whatsoever.

Keep in mind that while we’ve got an AMS setup, because the parts are all shared individually, we sliced a build plate for each specific color. We could’ve printed everything at the same time, but that would’ve just been a waste of filament, given the color changes (although it’d have been more content for our downtime).

Who’s the Creator?

Spike_Mix is an Industrial Product Design student, and it shows in their models. From the heart gears to a utensil organizer and a Voronoi coaster, plus kit cards and wall art, among other designs, usefulness meets a variety of styles.

If you want to support Spike_Mix directly, you can find their PayPal on their MakerWorld profile. Alternatively, you can check out their Patreon, where they offer a Commercial License membership. With it, in addition of staying up to date with their latest creations, you can sell 3D prints of the designs. Do you support Spike_Mix while making an income? That’s a win-win situation if you ask us.