Lithopanes
Thingiverse is the universe of things. It is a place where people share what they have made with the rest of the community.
A parametric model is that which is created by attributes that can be adjusted.
Customizer by is a way to
create parametric models that you can share, download and print.
Lithopanes are three-dimensional images in which the lighter elements of the photo are thin, while the darker elements are thicker. When not exposed to light, a lithopane does not look like much. The full effect doesn't appear until it is held up to the light.
Customizable Lithopanes makes the process of transforming your 2D images to 3D simple.
- Take 6 minutes to find 3 images. The images should be square and as close to 100 x 100, without being smaller than that.
I happen to like cats and placekitten is ideal for finding pictures of a certain dimension. What other kind of themes can you think of? Can the number 3 be important to the choice of imagery?
- Save your images in Evernote.
- Open Customizable Lithopane
- Upload your first image and remember to invert the image:
- The number of layers determines the fineness of the end result: the more layers, the smoother the gradation between light and dark.
You can add more layers, but adding layers will make the object thicker, which means less light will come through. If you add layers then also reduce the layer height, but be aware that your printing time will increase.
- Click on Create a Thing and name your lithopane:
- Click on the Create Thing button then on Return to Customizer:
- Create 2 more panes:
- Go to Your Things and wait for your lithopanes to be processed. When they are, click on the link to open:
- Click on Download
- Click on the link
- Open the stl file in Makerware:
- Click on scale and set the X to 80mm:
- Disable uniform scaling option and set the Z to 2.8mm
- Slice in Makerware. Use 100% infill, 1 ring and whatever you set your layer height to be in customizer. If you did not make an adjustment, then use .2mm
- A light filament works best.
- Print out the frame for the panes
- Create a circuit of three white LEDs in parallel. Design a way to fix the circuit inside the frame.
- Make drawings.
- Save drawings to Evernote
- Select best idea
- Model the interior
Instructions
Schematic
- Breadboard the circuit first to test it.
- Freeform solder to make your design more permanent.
- Use a digital caliper to measure your components. Write down the dimensions.
- Design the enclosure. For this first exercise, we'll walk you through the modeling process with Tinkercad. You will use this online application to create a tube, a bottom, a top and a plate with a design.
- Open Google chrome, a webGL enabled browser.
- Navigate to Tinkercad.com.
- Sign in or sign up
- Click on the Create a New Thing button.
- The first part to design is the main tube. There are 2 ways to do this:
Option 1
- Drag a cylinder from the left on to the workplane:
- Drag the node out to adjust the x and y dimensions:
Option 2
- Drag the ruler on to the workplane and adjust the x value first. Press tab to make the next adjustment
- Press tab to make the next adjustment:
- Press tab to make the next adjustment:
- Click on the x to dismiss the ruler
- Make a duplicate of the cylinder by pressing CTRL or Command D, then drag the top node up to enlarge the duplicated cylinder to 70mm. You want the outer cylinder to have a wall thickness of 1.5. Adjust the X and Y of the taller duplicated cylinder to 27:
- Select the taller interior cylinder and convert it to a hole. Then select both objects and select align:
- Select the two center nodes to center the objects:
- Select both objects and Group them:
- CTRL+mouse drag to rotate the view and see the newly formed hole:
- You are going to create the interchangeable plate. Drag a new cylinder on to the workplane. Drag the ruler out as well and adjust the dimensions of the cylinder to 30x30x2:
- Make a duplicate (CTRL or Command D) of the cylinder and adjust it to have the following dimensions 28x28x20:
- Convert the duplicated cylinder to a hole:
- Align the last two cylinders:
- You are going to model the top of the flashlight. Drag another cylinder on to the workplane. Adjust the dimensions to 26x26x30:
- Drag the workplane from the right palette on to the top of the last cylinder
- Drag another cylinder to the adjusted workplane. Drag the ruler on to the workplane as well:
- Adjust the dimensions to 30x30x2:
- Select the two cylinders and align them:
- Drag out another cylinder and adjust the dimensions to 23x23x40:
- Drag the workplane from the right palette and drop it anywhere in the work area to reset it. Convert the last cylinder to a hole:
- Select the last modeled object and the hole and then Group them:
- Drag a cube on to the workplane and adjust the dimensions to 40x4x30:
- Convert the cube to a hole, select the last object and the hole and select align:
- Once the hole is aligned, click on the workplane, then select the hole. Duplicate (CTRL or Command D) the hole and rotate around the Z axis while holding the SHIFT key:
- Group all the parts:
- Drag a cone on to the workplane. Drag the ruler on to the workplane. Adjust the cone to 28x2x14:
- Drag a cube on to the workplane. Make it much larger than the cone. Convert it to a hole, raise it 2mm above the workplane:
- Group the hole and the cone:
- Hold SHIFT and rotate the section of the cone 180°:
- Align the section of the cone with the top piece:
What you are doing is creating a mechanism to keep the top inside the cylinder.
- Select the top piece and ungroup to reveal the cubes:
- Select the same piece and ungroup again to reveal the interior cylinder:
- Move the interior cylinder down at least 1mm
- Select all the pieces of the top and click on group:
- You are now going to model the bottom of the flashlight. Duplicate the top piece and move it away from the original:
- Ungroup and move the interior cylinder down so that now the top cylinder of the top piece does not have anything removed from it:
- Group all the pieces, then hold SHIFT while rotating to rotate it 180°
- Drag a cube from the palette and adjust it to 13x21x some number greater than 2:
- Convert the cube to a hole:
- Select the bottom piece and the hole and align them:
- Group the aligned objects:
- You are going to return to the plate. Drag out another cube and adjust the dimensions to 28x2x2:
- Align the bar with the short cylinder
- Duplicate the bar and rotate the duplicated bar while holding SHIFT:
- Group all the two bars and the short cylinder:
- Align the short cylinder with the tube and then group the aligned objects:
- Align the grouped objects with the top, group them,then align the top with the group:
- Ungroup the pieces and adjust the placement so that the objects are stacked from top to disk to tube to bottom. Leave some space between each:
- Drag out a cube. Convert it to a hole. Cover the disk, tube and bottom and group them with the hole so that only the top is showing:
- Click on Design>Properties:
- Rename the mode your initials_top
- Click on the Design menu and select Download for 3D Printing. Select STL:
- Ungroup the hidden pieces:
- Create another hole over the top piece. Move the bottom hole over just the tube and botom piece. Group everything except the the cylinder with the cross:
- Remame:
- Download for printing.
- Ungroup, adjust, group, rename, download:
- Continue the same process for the last piece:
- Reveal all the pieces:
- Remane the model:
- Where's the personalization here? Now that you have printed and tested your flashlight, feel free to design a series of disks that can be substituted in and out of the toy.
