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Inspired by a joke about how glass screw-in fuses look like vintage neon lamps, I decided to make one from scratch using an existing edison screw lamp base.

This project does involve a 3D printed cover (very fast print) which can have its sizes tweaked to suit your own style.  The script is the exact same one as makes the bigger diamond caps for the hacked LED lamps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDoNPGNhAuQ

Files

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This project was inspired by a joke a friend made about vintage glass screw-in fuses looking like collectable neon lamps. It made me realise that I could make a custom version using just the bare base of a lamp with a suitable cover. These little neon indicator lamps usually run at 1mA or less and use a fraction of a watt of power. The ones in appliances are often over-run as mentioned recently by Technology Connections, but when run at a sensible current they can last virtually forever. In 220-240V countries I recommend using two 100K resistors, and in 100-120V countries I recommend using two 22K resistors. I printed the cover in clear/natural PLA, although other clear plastics would work too. I used a classic orange neon lamp, but you could use the phosphor coated ones too for colours like green, blue and white. However, the plain neon indicator will probably be brightest. The openscad script is at the bottom of this description. Mid-play video-adverts are annoying in technical videos, so I don't enable them. If you appreciate that and enjoy my content then you can help support the channel with a contribution of a dollar or two a month on Patreon. That also lets you critique the (advert free) videos before they are released, gives a more direct means of communication with me and also gives access to the regular relaxed Patreon live streams. https://www.patreon.com/bigclive Here's the openscad script. If you copy and paste it into openscad (freeware) then it will let you create an STL file to print. The variables at the top of the listing can be adjusted if desired, but are currently the same as I used to make the cap in the video. Press the hourglass button to make the STL file, and then when it has been created press the STL button to save it. For a fast preview of any changes press the button next to the hourglass button. //Lamp cap diamond. //You can adjust the five variables below base=25; //Diameter of base for lamp rim=5; //Length of rim at base size=50; //Size of diamond facets=6; //Number of sides (default 6) scaling=0.66; //Ratio of length to width (default 0.66) //Don't change variables below here halfsize=size/2; $fn=facets; difference(){ union(){ //outer body translate([0,0,0]) cylinder(h=4+rim,d1=base,d2=base,$fn=100); translate([0,0,-(base/2)+rim]) cylinder(h=halfsize,d1=0,d2=size); translate([0,0,halfsize-(base/2)+rim]) cylinder(h=size*scaling,d1=size,d2=0); } //Inner core. translate([0,0,-1]) cylinder(h=6+rim,d1=base-2,d2=base-2,$fn=100); translate([0,0,-(base/2)+rim+1]) cylinder(h=halfsize-1,d1=0,d2=size-2); translate([0,0,halfsize-(base/2)+rim]) cylinder(h=size*scaling-1.5,d1=size-2,d2=0); translate([-halfsize,-halfsize,-halfsize]) cube([size,size,halfsize]); }

Comments

Dave Frederick

Very nifty Big Clive. What a cool project! Thanks.

Gordo

Nice Clive.. I wonder if the frostiness could be down to filament being laid down on top of a previous layer which hasn't had time to cool yet. You could try printing with a very low deposition rate or print a half-scale diamond and see how that turns out..

bigclive

It turned out to be because of a preset minimum layer time to allow cooling. So the head slowed down on the smaller areas, resulting in the different appearance. I changed it to a zero layer time and it resulted in more consistent appearance.