Let's make a custom neon lamp and this was inspired by a friend posting a picture of some old glass Edison screw fuses and he joked, these must be the newfangled neon lamps that the youngsters are all into and I thought you know I knew it was a fuse but I just thought that'd be quite nice to actually make a custom neon lamp by with the using a custom cover onto an existing Edison screw base that I have salvaged off a decapitated LED lamp. So here's what we're going to do: I have a neon indicator lamp and I'm going to solder two resistors onto the leads and I'm going to keep them nice and long because one of them will be going through the end of this cap and the other will be going on to the side and they're going to solder onto the side. I've already pre-tinned this as a precaution and just in case it didn't tin during the video, but the other option is to fold the lead over and at the end, we're going to jam this into it and that would effectively Jam that lid against the side. So let's start.

So initially I need to get a height I want the neon lamp to be roughly Central to this so if I hold this in place here I'm looking for zip looking for the word. put it down to about here I shall Zoom down this This would be a good idea, then we can see better. So I would say that when I add the resistor on. Okay, I've got a rough idea of what I want here.

So I'm going to crop the new leads. Fortunately, it's quite long. so I'm going to crop these relatively long about see 15 millimeter, just over half an inch and I'm going to clamp it in between the jaws of the helping hand. This is a bit of silicon sleeping in the Jaws just to protect the lamp and make it grip better.

Otherwise, they tend to Ping out and then I'm going to leave this fairly long actually. so I should cut this one at about the same length. Know the choice of resistor technically speaking for a new in the UK and other similar voltage countries like a hundred, uh, 220 to 240 volt, they do recommend somewhere between 100K to 220k. You can go higher if you wish, but it will get progressively dimmer and it may start going unstable and flickering, which isn't a bad effect In in America you or other 120 volt countries you'd use about 39K typically.

So maybe to 22k resistors. I'm using two 100 key resistors just because uh, it seems a good idea. It's not going to push the lamp too hard and therefore it's going to last for ages If they overrun me in lamps they don't last as long. I should turn this before I try soldering it on I should tend both of them and then I shall apply that to that and fluid.

Nice nice, and now I shall tin this one as well. Ideally, it would be quite nice to flow the solder as you join the leads together, but I'm telling them both so that theoretically the flux isn't so important because they're both tinned already. Except it does leave that big tail usually of soda. But that's all right, it's fine.

it's worked perfectly right now. I'm going to see if I've actually got this right. so let's go in about there. The lamp base is there.

Yes, that's pretty good actually. Okay, I'm going to cut both resistors at around about the same height now so that resistor is going to Puck out the bottom of that break. Okay, actually, let me crop it off once. I pulled out the bottom.

Yes, I'll do that. So I'm going to put some heat shrink sleeving over this now to cover up to about there. So I shall cut two identical pieces of sleeving up. Just make them both identical even though they're not going to the same place.

If you're making one of these with a Um being a cab lamp holder, you would just leave them both. The Identical empty. They'd both go out at the same place at the bottom to one contact each. Double check at Amazon Shot Yes, I am in the shot.

This is good and now I shall heat shrink these on using the heat gun that is a part of my now ancient Yahuwah 8786d Chinese soldering station. It's a useful tool great for doing heat shrink and also suitable for reflowing soda, which is ultimately it's primary use. but uh I find I use it more for heat shrink and stuff like that more because I don't do a huge amount of surface mount stuff going to the fact it's so. Tangy But I'm doing more and more these days because ultimately you don't have any choice do you? Things are going firmly in the surface mount component.

Direction Now this is a little rivet pushed in the bottom to trap the wire. so if you go inside and push the rivet out or Pryor out from the bottom then it will release that wire and you can then stuff your own wire in there instead. This in working tool there is. It's like one of those rivets you get that put your buttons in your jeans and now I'm going to fold one of these leads up I'm going to push the other one down there through that hole at the bottom and uh, you know what? I'm going to fold it over.

so I shall just gently crop this a bit and then fold it over because it's kind of designed to do that. It goes into the recess here and then you put this rivet back in. It blocks it into place when you can actually pick the rivet up without fumbling it. So now when I push that rivet in that is that connection mode and it's locked in place.

Excellent! Now I'm going to solder this other lead by keeping the other one well out the way. I'm going to bend this one round, crop it down, and solder onto the side. so I'll throw some silver onto this, and then attempt to hold the lamp cap here while it gets progressively hotter and hotter as I melt the solder. This could be the thumbliest bit.

This is where as I see the marker just being folded over the top, but I didn't So I've got that pre-melted blob of soda. I've tested this metal as Steel a magnet sticks to it so I have melted that the wire has gone onto the solder and now I'm going to fold that down inside and then get this neon at round about the height that I want it. There is a bit of leeway here, which is quite nice. a little bit lower, and then using the heat gun again because this is quite a handy way to do it when you get these Uh lamp covers.

When you Salvage them off an existing lamp, it's basically the lamp's been put in and then they've got a tool that they pull a handle around and lots of pins. grin and it crimps into the lamp holder. The easiest way I've found of getting the Basin is since it's uh, quite thermally sensitive. Oh, after, just cause a little Avalanche of stuff here I just soften it with a heat gun, watch me go overboard and over soften it.

This is Pla incidentally. Now there's no STL file for this. Instead down the description, you will find a file uh, a script called an Open Scad script. And the thing about the Openscat script is that you can customize it and then create your STL file by building it.

You'll very quickly get the hang of it. This has gone very soft, way too soft not to worry and that's fine. I'll get this lamp where I want it and then just wiggle this in. Oh, that is way too soft.

Maybe I've even shrunk it down a bit. If that happens, you can add glue. Now here's a thing, right, the Open Scad file is one that I also used for making lamp covers. So the closest lamp cover I've got is actually not one of these.

but it's A. it was shaped like this. but there. It's designed for making big diamond shaped lab covers that go on to go on to existing uh, hacked lamps that the resistors have been changing so they run at much lower power and therefore don't melt the plastic.

So that script Here it turns out it's suitable for making these crystals in a size that can go into these as well if you set it for about 25 millimeters. And the nice thing about script is you can also scale the diamond up or down. Uh, here's one I made earlier match a couple of made earlier. These are the prototypes.

Um, so this was a smaller one that's a bigger one, but you could scale it even bigger if you wanted. Although keep in mind this is a quite low intense delayed. Um. But the nice thing you with that script, you can also extend it longer if you wish, just by changing a few variables.

Then once you've done it, you print the script. Now here's a question if you're familiar with 3D printing: I'm using an FL Sun Q5 and when it gets the tips of these as it gets narrower, it tends to go a bit frostier. Not sure why that is. It's nice and clear down here with the clear pla, but it gets frostier as it gets up to the end anyway.

I'm gonna let this one cool down I Think we'll have to add glue to that one so instead I shall show you one of the ones I made earlier just like blue Peter which was a kid's TV show in the the UK where they made things live and then said here's one made earlier so I'll screw it in and it just glues very gently in there. Oh, it's got a bit of instability. Oh, that's the camera frame rate catching the flicker. Rotate What? I'm going to take the exposure off and then I'm going to turn the layer off and you shall see it as it is a very gentle neon glow.

It'd be quite nice as a nightlight because it's just barely just gluing. Um, I'll put the smaller one in so you can see that as well. Maybe I could screw the other one in that I've made that. haven't really glued the cover in yet.

This one also quite nice. It's not going to be super bright, it is just really designed for decorative use, right? Let's see if I can screw this one in. This is one we've just made. Yeah, there it goes.

You can experiment. The position of the neon inside. Just bear in mind if you start pulling the cover off and before you've glued it, that that is kind of live in there. There's the neon glow itself.

the two little electrodes growing on me. Very nice under the current. I'm running these. I'm under running them deliberately.

The Neons will last for well, decades. They last a very long time if you want to run them, but that is it. Watch your eyes. The light is coming back, the light is back.

So that's it. Really, it's just fundamentally how you can make unusual little decorative new lamps that use virtually no power at all and will last Almost indefinitely. It's quite a nice project. It's just novel and another demonstration of something nice you can do with 3D printing.

Another reason that you might consider one day buying a 3D printer and I Want to mention at this point in time, if you go online and you look at the 3D printer channels, they all make it look really complicated. It's not, it really isn't. If you're daunted by that, don't be daunted by it. Just buy yourself a cheap, popular printer.

No need for tweaks or anything like that. Just start printing and then as you go along you might find you do want to tweak it. but off the shelf you can usually get fairly acceptable results from it. so don't let those channels put you off and that is it.

A nice 3D printed neon lamp.