The Complete Guide: How to Make Moving 3D Prints in Tinkercad (2025 Edition)

From Still to Moving

Have you ever seen those amazing dragons that print with moving parts or flexible octopuses that come right off the 3D printer? The secret isn't in the printer itself - it's in how you design the model. And here's the great news: you can make them for free using Tinkercad. If you want to move beyond basic models and create things that actually move, you're in the right place.

This guide gives you a complete, step-by-step walkthrough on how to make articulated 3d prints in tinkercad. The secret comes down to two main ideas: designing joints that work and carefully controlling the space (called tolerance) between parts that move. We'll cover how print-in-place design works, look at different types of joints, and learn the important skill of getting tolerance right. By the end of this guide, you'll not only understand how it all works but will have designed your own simple moving creature from start to finish.

Understanding the Basics

Before we start designing, it's important to understand the basic ideas that make moving prints possible. Learning these foundations will help you not only follow our tutorial but also create your own unique moving designs and fix any problems that come up.

Print-in-Place (PIP)

Print-in-Place, or PIP, is the basic magic behind these models. It means a design that prints as one solid file but has moving parts right after it comes off the printer, with no assembly needed. Think of it like printing a chain: the printer puts down each link, one layer at a time, leaving a tiny gap between them. The links are already connected but can still move once the print is done. This technique lets us create complex, working objects in one print job.

The Heart of Movement

The movement in a PIP model comes from its joints. While there are many complex joint types, most can be simplified into a few basic types that work perfectly in Tinkercad. The two most common and useful are the hinge joint and the ball-and-socket joint. Understanding the difference is key to picking the right one for your design.

The Hidden Hero: Tolerance

Tolerance, also called clearance, is the most important and often forgotten part of moving design. It is the planned, intentional gap we design between two parts that will touch or move against each other. If the tolerance is too small, the heat and slight errors of the printing process will cause the parts to stick together into a solid block. If the tolerance is too large, the joint will be loose, wobbly, and may not work as planned.

The perfect tolerance depends on your specific 3D printer, how well it's set up, the plastic you're using, and your slicer settings. However, a typical starting tolerance for most home FDM printers in 2025 is between 0.3mm and 0.5mm. This is just a starting point; the next section will teach you how to find your own perfect number.

Finding Your Perfect Tolerances

The most common reason articulated prints fail is wrong tolerance. Instead of guessing, we'll use a scientific approach by designing a simple, reusable tool in Tinkercad to find the perfect tolerance for your specific printer and plastic combination. This step will save you hours of frustration from failed prints.

Why One Size Doesn't Work

Every 3D printing setup is different. Things like printer calibration, nozzle size, plastic type and brand, and even room humidity can affect the final size of a print. A design with a 0.3mm tolerance that works perfectly on one machine might stick solid on another. Creating your own tolerance test is the only way to guarantee success.

Designing a Tolerance Tester

This process is straightforward and creates a small, quick-printing tool you can use every time you try a new plastic.

1. Create the Base: Drag a Box shape onto the workspace. Set its size to 80mm long, 20mm wide, and 2mm tall. This will be our foundation.

2. Create the Holes: Drag a Cylinder shape onto the workspace and set it to be a "Hole". Make its diameter exactly 5mm. Copy this hole four times and space them out evenly along the length of the base. Select the base and all five holes, and use the Align tool to center them. Finally, Group the shapes to cut the holes into the base.

3. Create the Test Pins: We will now create the pins that will fit into these holes. Drag a new Cylinder onto the workspace. This first pin will test a 0.2mm tolerance. Since our hole is 5mm, we will set this pin's diameter to 4.8mm. Give it a height of 10mm.

4. Copy and Adjust: Copy the 4.8mm pin four more times. We will adjust the diameter of each new pin to test a different tolerance:

   • Pin 2: 4.7mm diameter (for a 0.3mm gap)
   • Pin 3: 4.6mm diameter (for a 0.4mm gap)
   • Pin 4: 4.5mm diameter (for a 0.5mm gap)
   • Pin 5: 4.4mm diameter (for a 0.6mm gap)

5. Label Everything: Use the Text tool in Tinkercad. Create labels for "0.2mm", "0.3mm", "0.4mm", "0.5mm", and "0.6mm". Place the base on the workspace. Arrange the matching pins and labels next to the base so they all print as one job. This way, you won't mix them up after printing.

Reading Your Test Print

Once your tolerance test has finished printing and cooled down, carefully remove it from the build plate. Now, one by one, try to fit each pin into one of the 5mm holes in the base.

• Some pins might not fit at all. This means the tolerance is too tight for your machine.
• Some pins might be very loose and wobbly. This tolerance is too large.
• One pin should fit snugly but still be able to turn with a little bit of force. It shouldn't be too tight or too loose.

The tolerance for that perfect pin is your ideal number. For example, if the 4.6mm pin (representing a 0.4mm gap) works best, your ideal tolerance for this printer and plastic is 0.4mm. This is the number we will use for the rest of our project.

Mini-Project: A Simple Snake

Now it's time to put all this knowledge into practice. We will build a simple, moving snake using a series of hinge joints. This project directly uses the concepts of joint design and the specific tolerance we just discovered.

Part 1: The Body Segment

The foundation of our snake is a single, repeatable body segment that contains both the male and female parts of our hinge joint.

1. Create the Segment Body: Start with a basic shape. A Cylinder is a good choice. Set its size to 20mm in length, 15mm in width, and 10mm in height. You can use the "Sides" slider to make it smoother or more geometric.

2. Create the Female End (Hole): On one of the 15x10mm faces, we will add the hole. Drag a new Cylinder onto the workspace and make it a Hole. Let's say we want a 6mm diameter for our joint's axle. Set the cylinder's diameter to 6mm and make it longer than the segment's width (e.g., 20mm long). Center it on the end face of the body segment so it passes all the way through.

3. Create the Male End (Pin): This is the most important step. On the opposite end of the segment, we need to create the pin that will fit inside the hole of the next segment. Drag a new solid Cylinder onto the workspace. Its diameter must be the hole's diameter minus our tolerance. If our hole is 6mm and our ideal tolerance is 0.4mm, the pin's diameter must be 5.6mm. Make its length around 8mm so it sticks out from the body.

4. Capture the Pin: A simple pin would just pull out. We need to "capture" it. To do this, add a shape to the end of the pin that is larger than the 6mm hole. A Sphere is a good choice. Add a sphere with a 7mm diameter to the very tip of the 5.6mm pin. This "head" will be printed inside the next segment's body, locking the joint in place.

Part 2: Building the Chain

Now that we have a master segment, we can build the snake's body.

1. Group the Segment: Select all the parts of your single segment (the main body, the hole, the pin, and the sphere on the end of the pin) and use the Group command (Ctrl+G). This is now one complete object.

2. Copy and Align: Select the master segment and Copy it (Ctrl+D). This creates an identical copy in the exact same position. Without deselecting it, use the arrow keys or the move tool to slide the new segment over.

3. The Magic of Overlap: Move the new segment so its "female" hole lines up perfectly over the "male" pin of the original segment. The 7mm sphere on the pin should now be completely inside the body of the new segment, with the 5.6mm pin sitting inside the 6mm hole. The 0.4mm gap we designed is what will keep them separate during printing.

4. Repeat and Curve: Continue this process. Copy the newest segment, move it into position, and use the Rotate tool to slightly angle each new segment. By rotating each piece by 5 or 10 degrees, you can create a natural, slithering curve for the snake's body. Repeat until your snake is the desired length.

Part 3: The Head and Tail

A snake isn't complete without a head and a tail.

1. The Head: Select the very first segment in your chain. Ungroup it to access the individual parts. Delete the "male" pin and sphere assembly from its front. Now you can add new shapes to create a head. Use two small spheres for eyes and another shape to create a snout. Group it all back together.

2. The Tail: Go to the very last segment in the chain. Ungroup it. This time, delete the "female" hole. Select the main body shape and use the scale tool or other shapes to taper it down to a point, creating a tail. Group the final tail segment.

You have now designed a complete, print-in-place moving model!

Slicer Settings for Success

A great design can still fail with the wrong print settings. Preparing your model in your slicer software is the final, important step to bringing your digital creation into the physical world. Good slicer settings are just as important as good design.

Here is a pre-print checklist for moving models:

• Water-tight Model: Before exporting from Tinkercad, make sure your final model is fully grouped into one solid object. This prevents errors in the slicer.
• Orientation: Place the model flat on the build plate in your slicer. For our snake, this means laying it down on its side as it was designed. This provides maximum stability and the best surface for bed adhesion.
• Supports: For most well-designed print-in-place models, you should aim for zero supports. The design itself should be self-supporting. If your slicer shows that supports are needed for the joints, it's often a sign that the design needs to be adjusted in Tinkercad, perhaps by reducing an overhang angle.
• Adhesion: Use a brim or a raft only if you have issues with the first layer sticking. A brim is usually preferred as it's a single layer thick and easier to remove from the final print without damaging the small, moving parts.
• Layer Height: A standard 0.2mm layer height is an excellent starting point for both speed and quality. If you want exceptionally smooth joint movement, you can try a finer layer height like 0.12mm, but be aware this will significantly increase print time.
• Cooling: Part cooling is absolutely necessary. Make sure your part cooling fan is enabled and running at a high percentage. Effective cooling hardens the layers of the joints quickly, preventing them from drooping and sticking together.

Fixing Common Problems

Don't be discouraged if your first print isn't perfect. A stuck joint or a broken pin is a normal part of the learning process. Each failure is a data point that tells you what to adjust. Here's how to diagnose and fix the most common problems.

Your Moving Design Journey

Congratulations! We've journeyed from the basic principles of print-in-place design to mastering tolerances and building a complete moving model from scratch in Tinkercad. You've learned the theory and, more importantly, put it into practice.

The core takeaway is simple: the key to learning how to make articulated 3d prints in tinkercad is a thoughtful combination of clever joint design and precise, tested tolerance control.

Don't stop with the snake! Try designing your own creatures, robot arms, chains, or fidget toys. The principles we have covered here work for everything. You now have the skills and the methods to bring any number of dynamic ideas to life. Now go and create something that moves