by bamakojeff

I love this model from Adafruit.  But really all I want is the Communicator, not the electronics.  So I combined the two body halves, then trimmed and scaled them to more closely match the size of the actual units from the show. (See the Herocomm site for specs on the ST-TOS props.)

I reinforced the antenna hinge and adjusted it and the hinge openings so that it opens further and sits open.

I created new LED and Dial buttons since they no longer need to be pushed and nothing lights up.

I was going to make the antenna and area under it smaller to match the actual props (see the side-by-side pictures), but frankly, I really like the larger versions on the Adafruit model.  So I left all that mostly in the same scale as the Adafruit model.

Print Settings

Printer:                          

Homemade

Rafts:                          

No

Supports:                          

Yes

Resolution:                          

0.2

Infill:                          

20%

Notes:

The body is hollow so I printed it sliced with "Supports Everywhere" in Cura.  That has the added advantage of giving the body a bit more weight.

I printed the antenna with supports as well, but I'm not sure it needs them.  Cura adds them at a couple of places on the model, and so I printed with them.

You'll need to print three "led btn" pieces, each in a different color, and two "dial btn" pieces.

I'm too lazy to smooth and paint, so I paused the printing of the body where the silver edge is and swapped out the black for silver filament, then paused and swapped back to black when the silver edge was done.

Here's my color scheme:
body - black and silver
panel, bevel - silver
dial btn - metallic silver
led btn - gold, red, blue (all metallic)
antenna, grill - bronze
moira - natural