I’m in the process of replacing all my single-color christmas lights with addressable RGB LEDs, but the 12mm “bullet” form factor of them is different from the traditional incandescent mini lights, the 5mm wide angle LEDs, etc.:
You’d think they’d make C6/7/9 bulb covers that attach to them, but I have yet to find any for sale, anywhere. As such, I want to 3D print some, along with 12mm bullet pixel-sized replacements for my snowflake lights:
What’s some good filament I can get that will be reasonably clear and stay that way (without yellowing or getting too brittle) for several years’ worth of Christmas seasons, despite UV/rain/cold exposure?
(Bonus question: anybody know a good way to model the facets in those “strawberry” lights? The C7 bulbs on Thingiverse, such as this one, are all smooth, LOL.)
Edit: by the way, to be clear (pun intended): I don’t need optical clarity like the lens guy; scattering the light is fine. (In fact, doing that on purpose is kind of the point of modeling a faceted C7 bulb instead of a smooth one.) I just want to make sure that whatever part of the filament that doesn’t manage to be transparent is white, not tinted some dingy color.
I do happen to have some Inland “natural” PLA laying around and did a test print in that. It’s not too bad – only a little bit yellow at the wall thickness I’m using – but I fear for how it will hold up over time.
Yeah I didn’t realize you were after a specific style of faceting until I posted the comment and scrolled back up. I’m sure there’s an easy way to do it in blender, I’m just not quite sure how… I’ll let you know if I figure it out! The method would be subdividing each face of the icosphere in three, with a point at the center of each triangle and cutting lines from the existing corners to it, I’m just not sure how to do it automatically. Once you have it divided like that, easy enough to grab those new center points and scale them out to make your triangle facets
Here’s the result the deleted comment yields
With a basic bevel