Lithophane Clock

I love making lithophanes with my 3D printers (see attached pics of other projects). They make great gifts and are so unique that they really change the look of whatever room they are in. Lithophanes originated around the 1820s and were seen in Europe originally, only instead of being done with plastic like mine, they were made on carved marble. Carved to be thicker where you want darker colors and thinner where you want lighter ones. A lithophane looks like nothing until you put light behind it.

When I saw that there was a clock category, I set out to design a functional clock that would feature a lithophane as the main clock face.

A computer with a slicer like Cura installed onto it and access to the internet to use the tinkercad website.

LED light strip that is at least a couple of feet in material. I used ones that were battery operated so that the clock could be away from outlets like most analog clocks.

Battery operated clock mechanism with hands. (There are printable options for hands as well)

A FDM 3D printer. I used an ender 3v2 and an anycubic kobra max for mine. The Kobra max was needed for the actual clock body as it was nearly 400 mms. That file could be split in half to fit on a normal sized printer or you could take every measurement that I have and scale it down to 50%.

3D printer filament. You will at least need a roll of white filament for the lithophane and then one for the clock body. Other optional color options are the hanging brackets for parts and the clock face marks. My next attempt at this will be done in either marbe filament or wood based filament that can be sanded to look like natural wood.

The first few pictures are how to edit your picture: Note that you want something that has plenty of space around your focal point, as you will be sort of cookie cutting a circle around the picture. So do not have anything in the corners that you would want to have in the picture.

Lithophanes look the best when you make the black and white pop on them. I showed you the settings that I normally choose, although I also usually eye ball it. The main thing you want is for nice sharp black colors and not too blinding white ones. If lots of greys are showing, then that will show. Save the image and get ready to make the file.

I make most of my lithophanes at on the lithophanemaker website, as they have the best variety of shapes and I always love the results. I scroll down and choose the round lithophane and upload my picture.

This is where printer size will come into the picture. My final product is huge at a whopping 15 and a half inches long and nearly 10 inches tall. If you were to want to fit this on an ender 3 or something comparable, then you would have to split the clock body in the later steps or you can take any number I give you and divide it in 2 to scale it down.

My goal for the lithophane portion of the project was 200 mms, so I did the radius at 96mm and frame width at 4 mm, which adds up to 200 all the way across.

I was sure to check that the image was set to positive and also turned the hoop option off (this makes for great christmas ornaments if you want to do it at a later date).

The last step is to adjust the height and width of the image on the lithophane. You can do this by shifting the x and y around on the website. Once done, put your email in and hit to create the file. Then open your file in a slicer for the next step.

Open the litho file on cura and position it vertically, preferably in line with you Y axis or diagonal. It has much better odds of staying upwards if you can do that. I also added custom supports around the bottom edges.

NOTE: Do not select to turn supports on, as it will ruin your print to support it. You will need to add the custom support plug in from cura and then add them that way. This is just to give it not strength to hold on the bed. I also did a little bit of glue stick just to be safe. A combination of these things and a tuned in printer will make this succeed. DO not print the file laying flat.

Once the file is ready, I also used the positioning to add a custom support cylinder into the middle of the print. This is where the clock chaft will go through. The easiest way to do this would be to actually start with this step while the file is laying down and select the litho, then make sure that every single position for x,y and z is set to 0. Next, create a custom support that is cylindrical shaped and also home it to the dead middle by having x,y and z all be 0. Make the cylinder be 8-10 mms wide and long. I used 20 mms to assure that the shaft for the clock would fit, but in hindsight 8 mms would've been perfect for what I purchased.

Picture #2 shows the settings that I used to make this hole in the lithophane. You need to click on the support and go to the "per model settings" tab, change the support to a cutting mesh and then choose to select the settings and make sure that the 3 settings I have in the picture are selected. Once selected, move each of them to a 0. To check that this has worked, slice the model and then select preview. It should show the hole in the model like my picture.

The print settings that I use for all lithos are shown in the first picture. I do .12 layer height, 30 mm/s print speed, 99% infill and then I make sure that the supports are turned off and I also change the build plate adhesion to a brim to help it hold on tight.

I move the file over to my ender 3v2 and then start it up.

Results of the litho are the final 3 pictures. Note that it looks like nothing when it is just sitting there but has your picture when you hold it up to the light.

I chose to use a basic mantle clock that I edited for what I was hoping to do, but the idea will remain the same for whatever design you choose.

First, make a 196 mm circle using the hole tool. This is going to represent the future litho, but be slightly smaller to give the litho a ledge to sit on. Copy this circle for later use and paste it off to the side. Max out the sides and edges to make it a perfect circle and then adjust the clock until the circle that represents you litho fits. Once centered, combine the clock with the hole to make a perfect hole all the way through the middle of the clock.

Then take the circle hole that you copied and pasted and increase the size to be slightly larger than the lithophane and center it again with the clock, but only align it with the top 4-6 mms of the front of the clock. Once combining it, this will create a hole large enough to fit the litho with the previous hole leaving a lip for it to sit on.

The last part of this step is making the backing for your clock. If you still have the last circle copied, then you can paste it and turn it to a solid and scale it to be sure if covers up the entire back. Place a small box shaped hole in the bottom of this circle and then before combining it to the clock, find it's true middle and make 2 holes spaced apart 10-15 mms.

I made the holes slightly larger than the hole needed for my M4 bolts to go through, but tight enough that the screws wouldn't wobble. These holes are for the clock mechanism holder on the inside and the LED battery box on the back side. Just to keep consistency with the hole spacing, create a little strip above the holes and also put the hole through the strip as the base plate for the mounting parts. The easiest way that I found was to:

1. Combine the holes with the mounting strip to form it
2. copy it
3. Undo the combining to get your holes back and in the same place
4. Paste the mounting strip back down and combine the holes with the wall backing.
5. On to the next step.

First, copy and paste the mounting strip that you just made to have a second one. Do not stretch or adjust this backing, as it is scaled perfectly to match the back of the clock. If you need to make one longer, then match the dimensions and add sections to it.

I decided to place 2 larger holes that ony went halfway down on the mounting plate, so that the bolt heads / nuts are not sticking out. This is optional, but I also added a channel on each one that could be used to tuck a long ziptie all the way around if you were to not have other fasteners available.

Next take one of the mounting plates and design what will hold your clock parts on the inside. The one that I am using is 2 and 1/3 inches by 2 and 1/3 inches, so I used those measurements. Make the bracket reach out the length that you need and then made another strip that was the same dimensions without holes and combine them as a cross. Make 4 vertical strips to attach to your cross beams making a holder for the clock box. This holder does not need to be enclosed, but instead be able to hold the clock box still and centered.

The next step is optional, but necessary if you are using a battery operated LED system. Yours might look very different than mine, but the important part for me was having the screw holes still lined up and also accessible for tightening my fasteners and also having an opening for the power switch and an opening for the cord. Measure accordingly and remember to make no adjustments to the initial mounting bracket that would make the holes unaligned.

Put the items in your slicer and in a way that needs minimal supports and get to printing. The last picture of this step shows my final results.

While you are waiting on the clock to print, you can design a clock face, so that the recipient of this gift can actually tell the time!

Make a ring the total size of your litho and then the width of whatever you chose for a frame (4 mm frame in this case).

Make a strip that goes slightly past the ring (to represent the notch) Center this strip with your circle and make a copy of it. Paste a new one and rotate it 15 degrees, center that, copy, paste, rotate 15 degrees, ect.

By the time you've finished this loop, you should have placed 6 total lines that cross the circle two times a piece to represent the hours.

Next, make the line smaller, shorter and thinner. This will represent the minute marks. Go to the start again, rotate the line 3 degrees, center it, copy it, paste it, rotate it 3 degrees and continue. Every time you're going to cross an hour notch, rotate the line 6 degrees to jump to the next minute hand. Once you're done, you should've placed enough lines to have 60 total notches on the clock representing each hour and minute.

Create a large circular hole that goes most of the way to the notches, leaving only enough to still show your marks (example: if the ring is 200 mms with a 4 mm frame, then setting the circle hole to 194 will give you 2 mm notches on the inside of your ring). Group together all of your parts to make your ring. You can also add numbers to the outside if you would like or could even make a ring that strictly has numbers on it.

Put it in your slicer and start the print!

First, align your 2 holders to the body of the clock by either using a 4 mm long 4mm bolt and nut or by zip tie or maybe a fastener of your own preference.

I then un did the backing to my LED strips and wound it all around the inside of the clock in order to hit every angle of the litho. I stuck the final part that connects to the battery pack onto the very back, slid the battery pack into it's holder and attached the 2 lines.

Next, I sat the clock box into its holder, placed the litho over top of the shaft and then installed the hands. It goes hour hand, minute hand, then second hand.

From there, I messed around with the brightness of the lighting until I found the shade and strength of light that I thought looked the best and then it was all done!

Final thoughts: This is awesome! I love the final look of it, but will make some changes for the next iteration, Those changes are mostly just in terms of tighter measurements and better quality. If you have any other cool ideas for lithophanes then feel free to get ahold of me on here or on my facebook page: Hess Express 3D Printing. Thanks for looking and I hope that you like it!