A while ago I saw a TED talk about adjustable glasses. I wanted to build my own. This could eventually be used for eye glasses that are printed out or for a telescope or a microscope.
The biggest problem with this is making a seal that doesn’t leak around a plastic film. There were several designs I went through to get to the hexagonal pattern that I eventually published. Using the circular mating plates for the film never gave me a good seal all the way around. It turned out that since the printer doesn’t print thin lines accurately all the way around the circle, that the grooves in the plates wouldn’t ever mate up properly.
With the hexagonal parts I found that the groves printed out more reliably and mated much better. Still not perfect since it leaks, but a little RTV or Weldit can solve that problem.
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- This wasn’t the best design
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- The basic idea behind the liquid lens. Water in a container will refract water. If you choose the right shape container you can produce any magnification you want.
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- Your plastic should be nice and smooth after being clamped. Its also a good idea to put a bead of Weldit all around to keep it waterproof.
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- The hole for the tubing should be aligned. I had to drill mine out with a 2mm drill bit to get it perfect.
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- Regular lab syringe. I had these laying around for mixing epoxy.
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- Heat shrink tubing worked really well as tubing in this case.
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- This is the stuff I used to make the lens not leak.
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- These are the clamps that hold everything together once its put together.
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Yo Chris.
This thing is awesome. You think maybe it would benefit from a bleeder valve?
The bleeder valve would be really useful with the filling the first time. The air gets trapped inside, but with the syringe you can suck out the air and keep injecting more water. If I were going to be manufacturing this in mass, it’d need a bleeder valve just so it can do fine adjustment and keep the air out.