Hi! So I have this tradition of making an earring every year for christmas that contains lights.
This year i wanted to make a stained glass motif.
The thought behind the design, is that it is rechargeable, and that one can design more front-panels, and just switch out the design to something that suits the occasion. Not just christmas.
There are 4 printable files
1x backside with a hole for the USB-C charging port and switch
1x backside with no holes for people to modify according to needs and own internal electronics
1x see-through front panel that interlocks with the backside
1x stained glass design outline
one needs 1x backside, 1x frontpanel and 1x outline
FDM-printer: The backside and outline are printed with an FDM-printer (in my case an Anycubic Kobra 2 Neo)
Resinprinter: The see-through panel is printed on a resin printer (in my case an Anycubic Photon Mono M5s)
The same effect might be achievable on an FDM-printer with transparent filament, I do not have any, so I havent been able to try.
Transparent Resin: Transparent resin was used to both make the seethrough panel, but also mixed with acrylic inks to create the glass-like effect. If one has a good variety of translucent resins, that will probably be a prefered material over mixing.
Electronics: I work a lot with recycled materials, and both the USB-C charging module and the Lithium-ion battery are reclaimed from vapes I have found on the street.
The switch i have used is an On-On switch i bought from here: https://www.starelec.fi/product_info.php?products_id=17716
The cables are reclaimed from discarded electronics
2 LEDs and a 220 ohm resistor
Step 1
Print all the pieces, 1x backside 1x front-panel and 1x outline
Step 2
Glue the outline onto the front-panel
make sure you glue the whole outline, we dont want the resin to seep underneath
Step 3
Once the glue has dried, you can fill the different holes/pockets that the ouline has created with resin.
I mixed my transparent resin in a 30:1 ratio with Liquitex acrylic inks
I filled all the holes/pockets of the same colour at the same time, then i ran it in my wash&cure station to harden. This to avoid messing up by spilling liquid resin into other uncured pockets.
Step 4
Solder the internals. I have very limited knowledge in electronics, i took it slow, double checked everything with a multimeter.
Classic, negative to negative, positive to positive. The 2 leds are in parallell inorder to be as bright as possible, and i found through trial and error that a 220 ohm resistor worked well for me, a 1k ohm resistor didnt look to bad either. Your milage may vary.
Step 5 (optional)
I painted the backside with acrylic colours, to look like a gray brick wall. A more knowledgeble person than me might be able to add the stone texture already in the printing step of the process so that it would be easier to paint.
Step 6
Put everything together, like the amateur I am, i hotglued everything in place, and put a bit extra hotglue on the exposed wires, since Lithium batteries scare me, and i dont want anything to short out.
The backside and the front-panel click together nicely, when you want to open it up again, it might help to squeeze to top and bottom of the backside to create a small spring between the frontpanel and backside for easier opening.
Step 7
Drill a hole at the top and attach the earring hardware necessary
Good luck! please share if you choose to make this or make your own stained glass designs!
Yours,
Elli
The author marked this model as their own original creation.