How to Make a Raft for AVA's Gear Toy 2

[LesHall 95]

Hey everyone, members of the human hive mind, I bring you this interesting question!

How do I make my own rafts?

My most popular 3D printable item is AVA's Gear Toy 2. It is a planetary gear set located here:

AVA's Gear Toy 2

It's appeared on a few YouTube segments and is at the very top of my Analytics listings. So I figure I'll make a new one by crafting the original a bit better. More comments, better size scaling from small to large, three printable build plates, and general cleanup of the code - oh also designed for Customizer.

All that seems really nice and then I realized that I could make the whole thing be print-in-place if only I made the base of the unit be a raft. Just like selecting the raft feature on Cura's Build Plate Adhesion settings, I will make my own raft and then all eight of the gears can be printed on a base that is a custom designed raft. This will end all that silly build plate and assemble with glue nonsense and let me actually do this popular item as a print in place.

I already know the technique for making hinges that print in place, and I have a bit of a clue for how to make a raft but really I would like confirmation and a little bit of community support on this one to save time and grief on it. Also this way I can reference the excellent community resources at Ultimaker to maybe sell more UM printers (yeah maybe lol). but anyway, for what it's worth I'll make mention!

So tell me, how would you go about this?

Les