this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Took a quick crack at doing it by hand, subdiving an icosphere in that specific way and copying it around.

Definitely a bit time consuming but not too bad for that many faces. I imagine scaling it up would make finding an automated solution more important though. That was maybe 10 minutes of work? not bad

scaling it and solidifying yields this

Step by step:

Basic icosphere

Subdivided the edges and connected to opposing corners to find the middle of the triangle

Cut the last edge in and dissolved unnecessary edges

Repeated for each level, then duplicated and rotated 5 times to make the sphere out of these divided faces (mirrored on the z axis to save half the work)

Selecting all those midpoints with a side on xray view

From there just scaling them out to make the pyramids