Slicer Settings for Lithophanes – Tweaking to Perfection
November 1, 2020
BY ITSLITHO
In this guide, we will explain how to create a 3D printed pumpkin lithophane perfect for scaring your neighbors during Halloween! The ItsLitho lithophane tool makes it easy to create this 3D printed Halloween lithophane.
Usually Thingiverse has some pumpkin shapes with a face in it. But what if you would like to have a witch or ghosts on a pumpkin? Without ItsLitho you would have to manually model this, which takes a lot of practice and most importantly a lot of your time!
So how do you create a good looking 3D printed pumpkin lithophane? Of course by utilizing the ItsLitho lithophane maker! In the shape select box choose the pumpkin shape. The pumpkin lithophane has many options but don’t be afraid, many of these options are just to fine-tune your pumpkin lithophane. The default settings of the pumpkin lithophane are already great for printing. However, you can modify every aspect of the pumpkin shape which need some explanation. In this guide we will walk trough the these settings!
A pumpkin lithophane requires some extra attention printing. There are parts where the overhang angle is too large for your printer to handle well. The pumpkin lithophane is therefore somewhat harder to print than your typical lithophane.
Creating the Halloween lithophane will be explained by creating the pumpkin from the image above. This pumpkin lithophane was also printed and can be seen at the end of this step by step guide.
For now, the image is stretched over the entire pumpkin. This is often undesired. To counteract, do the following:
The 3D printed pumpkin lithophane requires some extra attention. There are most likely large overhangs on the top and bottom of the pumpkin. The top of the pumpkin will most-likely be suspended from the ground and not connected to the other parts of the pumpkin as shown in the image below. It is important to give this some thought. We suggest you use supports to be able to print the pumpkin lithophane. The best way would be to manually add supports for the top and bottom of the lithophane. But a quick and easy way is to turn on the supports in your slicer. Increase the support overhang angle threshold to a high angle, such as 70 degrees. This will make sure that only the absolute necessary parts will get support and often will avoid putting supports on the lithophane itself.
In the last step, you’ll simply have to print the pumpkin lithophane. Choose a suitable filament such as orange PLA or white PLA with an orange/warm white light.
Our recommendation for this print is the Orange PLA from Geeetech which we used ourselves. If you choose to print it with white filament, we recommend Esun Cool White PLA, which is in general one of the best filaments for the use of lithophanes!
After this send the STL to your printer and wait to see the pumpkin slowly appear on your print bed! Make sure to carefully remove the supports from your pumpkin lithophane.
It’s that simple! The new ItsLitho pumpkin lithophane is the answer to your Halloween success story. Would you like to share your pumpkin lithophane or see what others have made, then please join our Facebook group!
For the technical lithophane designers, we have put a lot of options for the pumpkin shape in our application. These options will give you full control over the pumpkin lithophane shape. We will explain these options below.
We’ll first briefly explain the settings which will make up your pumpkin lithophane. The cad drawings below will help you understand what each parameter means.
Default settings (Grooves = 5)
Grooves option is set to 10
Default settings (AmplitudeY = 15)
AmplitudeY option is reduced to 5
Default settings (FlatnessY= 2)
FlatnessY option is set to 20
Default settings (AmplitudeX = 2)
Amplitude option set to 10 mm
Default settings (FlatnessX= 2)
FlatnessX option is set to 20
We came up with the idea of how to do a Halloween lithophane 2 weeks prior to Halloween. We have developed this function in record time so that our users still have time to print it before Halloween. As a result, there are still bugs in the pumpkin lithophane. Known bugs:
If you have noticed more bugs or have ideas on how to improve the pumpkin lithophane, please let us know! The easiest way to contact us is by filling out the feedback/suggestion/bug forms inside the tool, send a mail to help.itslitho@gmail.com, or contact us on our facebook page
Our first 3D print lithophane test is an undeniable success. Not only is this our first 3D printing lithophane pumpkin test print, it also acts as our proof of concept. With this proof of concept, we’ve shown that a pumpkin lithophane works great! Our family and neighbors were very impressed and yours will definitely be too! We can’t wait to see what you can come up with!
With ItsLitho you are able to design your own unique lithophane in an easy and adaptive manner. Keep track of your design with the preview model, choose different shapes, add handy attributes and customize it the way you want!
We have selected the best-known products for creating lithophanes in our store!
Free online designing software that helps you create high-quality 3D printed lithophanes. It’s a simple yet powerful cross-platform lithophane maker.