Support Ring Lattice

The internal support structure for the printable Earth, printed as 16 separate pieces per hemisphere on a 220 mm square bed and assembled inside the globe. Three horizontal rings (one per latitude band) are flat washers — their top and bottom faces lie in planes parallel to the equator's, so each ring stands on its whole annular face and prints flat. A ring carries a tab over every tile centre of its band, seating in a socket cut into the centre of that tile's underside. Twelve meridian arcs run from the equator to the cap ring; at each ring the arc's key seats in a notch in the ring face it arrives at, and seats with a fraction of a millimetre of clearance all round. A cap stem posts up to the pole, tabs into the polar cap tile's socket, and ties to the cap ring with two crossed spokes. Both hemispheres are shown assembled; the faint wireframe sphere is the globe's surface (R = 100 mm). Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom.

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