Camera Solar Film Bracket

About

The idea with this filter "bracket" is that it is easy to apply and remove for total eclipse photography: during the partial phases, you want the filter over your lens (by fitting the cuff over your lens hood), but for totality, the bracket can be quickly removed, and then quickly re-applied once totality is over.

Though designed for solar filters, it can hold any thin filtering film, such as for color or other visual effects, when you're not photographing our star.

Safety Notice and Disclaimer

If you intend to use this object to do solar photography, make sure you do your research. This can help you photograph the sun, but it is up to you, the user, to ensure your own safety, and prevent damage to your camera equipment (or eyes, in the case of a small telescope). This object simply holds a piece of filter film in front of your camera, nothing more. It is intended to be loosely attached, for quick removal during total eclipse photography, and as a result, may not remain well attached in a windy or gusty environment.

Materials needed

• PLA or another rigid filament for the frame pieces.
• Flexible filament for the cuff and gasket pieces.
• Filtering film material

Printing

The model files posted here are sized to fit my specific camera lens hood. You are almost certainly going to want to download the OpenSCAD file, and produce a customized version of the parts for your own needs. I hope I named the parameters well enough to be self-explanatory! I reckon you could also use scaling to make the parts the sizes you need, but I have not tried doing this myself to see how well it works.

The "Entire assembly" setting in the OpenSCAD Customizer is just so you can see the thing as it fits together -- do not print it.

Print the Cuff and Gasket using flexible filament. The Cuff needs to be flexible in order to compression-fit onto a lens hood. Use 5% infill on the cuff, to allow it to flex.

"Flexible" is a pretty broad category, so perhaps I should elaborate. I used AmazonBasics TPU in my prints, and Amazon did not appear to offer it when I last checked. It is flexible, as expected, but does not stretch very much.

If your slicer has a setting for it, minimize the nozzle crossing over the large cuff opening, to avoid stringing. If you get stringing, you're going to have a bad time. Also set the starting point of each layer to be at the same point, as opposed to a setting like "random".

Print the Front and Back using PLA, or other similar material with low warping properties.

Post-Printing

Assembly

1. Using the Gasket piece as a size template, cut out the desired filtering material, making the filter slightly smaller than the gasket. Cut or round off the corners of the film.
2. Place the Front piece down.
3. Place the Gasket piece within the recess of the Front piece. The smoother side should go up, if you care about this sort of thing. I don't have a specific rational reason to recommend this, but it feels right to suggest.
4. Place the film over the gasket, noting that with some films, the facing matters.
5. Place the Cuff piece, gasket side down, onto the film.
6. Place the Back piece over the cuff, chamfered side up, over the gasket, and snap it into place. There are 3 snaps on each side, on the interior of the Front piece.

Bahtinov Mask

I don't think the Bahtinov mask works -- like at all. In theory, it replaces the front gasket, and you don't use any filter, but in my only test of it so far I couldn't notice any effect. I decided to leave it in the code, however, to let folks tinker with it if they know what they're doing. If you do happen to know what you're doing, I'd appreciate feedback on what I can do to make it better!