How to print with glass  

RE: How to print with glass

 I went to buy some of my favorite clear ABS and its been discontinued 😥

now searching for a new source.

I've had good luck with this: https://www.hatchbox3d.com/collections/abs/products/3d-abs-1kg1-75-twht

The windows in the buildings below were done with this.  I did not attempt to make them truly transparent, but they do pass incandescent and LED light just fine.

It was out of stock for a long time during the height of the pandemic, but it's been available lately again.

RE: How to print with glass

@jsw - I like the way the diffraction makes the street light glow. Nice effect.

RE: How to print with glass

Posted by: @bobstro

@jsw - I like the way the diffraction makes the street light glow. Nice effect.

Thanks, but actually, the street lamp globe is not mine.  It's a stock Lionel 50s vintage (I got these as new old stock) Boulevard Lamp shown here:

http://tandem-associates.com/lionel/lionel_trains_76_acc.htm

It's a quite opaque white plastic, actually, but a #53 bulb does produce quite a bit of light from within it.  The building windows are what I printed with the so-called transparent ABS and they pass a lot more light than the Lionel lamps.

Now there is a competing product of the same vintage which I also have, which was sold under various brand names, which has a less opaque globe as shown below.  This still is more opaque than the windows I printed.  This lamp typically has a slightly dimmer bulb (1447 IIRC) but puts out about the same amount of light as the Lionel branded ones in the link and photo above.

RE: How to print with glass

Posted by: @jsw

Thanks, but actually, the street lamp globe is not mine.  It's a stock Lionel 50s vintage (I got these as new old stock) Boulevard Lamp shown here:

Ah, well I have good taste then. 😀 

Have you tried printing your own? Seems those would be good candidates for LEDs. The flickering candle LEDs should give some good effects.

RE: How to print with glass

I was trying to think of a word to describe the 3D printed effect and thought of "crystal", so printed this:

Then thought of "ice" and printed this:

Almost lost the rock to a spool snag halfway up and now my PETG is getting stringy from the humidity. That's enough for today I think.

RE: How to print with glass

@bobstro

those are pretty excellent!  Are those hollow?

RE: How to print with glass

Posted by: @ssill2

[...] those are pretty excellent!  Are those hollow?

Thanks. They're still rough as I'm testing things out. Yes, both are fully hollow (0% infill) printed with one (wide) perimeter. Flat top surfaces (see top of crystal) are a challenge. I was very pleased that the diamond printed without support with the top printed down (you can see the 1st layer lines). Considering this is PETG with no cooling, overhang results are very good.

RE: How to print with glass

@bobstro

I think even if you hollowed the thing out to say 2-3mm walls, the effect could be nice for things like christmas or halloween ornaments.  You've given me some really good ideas.  Thanks for working so hard on this!  I killed the last print.  I wasn't happy with how it was turning out.  I'm pretty confident now that reasonably transparent thin objects are attainable which I think is mostly all I'm going to try from now on.  I think reasonably thin walled hollow things are doable as you've shown.  Good show!

RE: How to print with glass

Once I got past the idea of using one set of parameters for both flat panes and 3D shapes, life got a lot easier. I'm having fun testing the limits. Glad this thread got started. Seeing what other folks are doing is always good motivation.

RE: How to print with glass

 Posted by: @jsw

Thanks, but actually, the street lamp globe is not mine.  It's a stock Lionel 50s vintage (I got these as new old stock) Boulevard Lamp shown here:

Have you tried printing your own? Seems those would be good candidates for LEDs. The flickering candle LEDs should give some good effects.

No, I consider those lamps to be in the Ain't Broke Don't Fix It category, except for the fact that they are out of proportion to true O scale.

Newer products of that type do use LEDs, and they also offer LED replacements for most popular bulbs that are used on O scale equipment.

I actually prefer a warmer cast than the typical white LED produces and on the building facades ('flats') that I am modifying to have individual lights behind the windows (instead of one bulb illuminating the whole shebang) I'm using two LEDs per window, one white and one yellow, with a diffuser (top photo below) over the both of them to warm up the light somewhat.

For a flickering LED, these streetlights and my whole layout, while not year-specific, is of the postwar and modern era, well after the lights were electrified.

However, I did find one very good use for flickering LEDs, and that's for my smoking-flaming burning dumpster (bottom photo below) which uses red and yellow flickering LEDs and looks quite authentic.  The smoke generator is a sand-coated resistor and a stack of washers and uses the very common Mega Steam smoke fluid, normally used in model railroad steam locomotives.

RE: How to print with glass

I wonder what affect oven annealing might have especially if it is pushed to its limits

RE: How to print with glass

last attempt of the day lol

RE: How to print with glass

Posted by: @bobstro

Posted by: @annier

Here's an example of what I've been able to get. As I said it's milky with some of the lines showing. This is an earring pendant about 30mm long and 3mm thick. You can plainly see through it but I would love to get more of a crystal clear look. These actually look quite nice when worn in real life. 

Would you be willing to upload the STL for the crystal earring? I'd like to try a couple of things with that design.

Sorry if I appear to be ignoring you, this is not one of the boards I check daily. 

When I get home I will post it. This will be late tonight or maybe tomorrow depending on {blush} how many beverages I end up having today. 🙂

RE: How to print with glass

@annier

Right on!  I hope you're at least drinking GOOD beverages 🙂

RE: How to print with glass

Good beverages?  While we on the tangent, I am having a little of Jefferson's Bourbon.  A drink based on a recipe developed by one of the finest leaders in the history of the free world.  

RE: How to print with glass

@cwbullet

Nice. Yep I like a good bourbon.  I’m more a scotch guy though.  Something speyside and at least 11 years old

RE: How to print with glass

One final test in this series. I tried the new monotonic infill option in the new PrusaSlicer 3.2beta release which uses monotonic for all infill layers. Here's the result with normal top & bottom layers producing an alternating but very even appearance on the right compared with the "glass" uniform infill pattern on the left. In this pic, the bottom of each test piece has been dipped.

The diffused yet even pattern might be more appropriate for some uses.

RE: How to print with glass

Amazing thread. 🙂

as there have been some mentions about sanding:
Has anyone some pics to show what results can be archived in this case?

RE: How to print with glass

Okay, let's see if I zipped it correctly and if it posts ok ...

As for beverages, we were drinking Heineken yesterday. Yes, you can get very silly after a few of them and very stupid after several of them, not that I would ever do it. 🙂

As for whisk(e)y, I'm not really a fan. To be honest I cannot tell one from another by taste. One of our bosses is a big whiskey sno^H^H^Hfan and when he invites us over and has "tastings" where he describes each one but they all taste the same to me. And yes, you can easily get totally gooned at one of those "tastings" even with the small shot glasses only partly filled. Oh well ...

Hope everybody else had a great 4th! First normal holiday weekend for me in what seems forever!

RE: How to print with glass

@annier

Heineken is better than Budweiser I suppose lol.  If I do drink beer I like the dark dark stuff lol(think Guinness).   So Porters, Stouts, etc.  I think it's new holland that does one called dragon's milk and it's like 10%.  There's another one called Ten Fidy that is like 12.9%.  It only really takes one of those puppies to get you where you need to be lol.