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Making new frames for my broken glasses in under 1 hour Introduction The eyewear industry is Have you ever wondered why eyewear companies like Oakley, Ray-Ban, and Prada all sell frames with prices ranging from $100 to over $300? It turns out, the licensing and trademark rights to Ray-Ban, Oakley, Prada, Chanel, Transitions, Crizal, Coach, Michael Kors, DKNY Armani, and Tiffany Varilux are owned by a named ? There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of them, but they are the world's largest company in the eyewear industry. They even own some common stores like Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters. In summary, messed up. single company Luxottica these guys pretty much have all the control over the eyewear industry. Last week, I accidentally broke one of the nose pads on my frame. I was initially going to be a normal person and buy a new set from the store, but then I asked myself, “Is there another way to get my vision back ”. That’s when I stumbled upon the world of 3D-printed glasses. As it turns out, without paying $150 for frames? people have custom-designed and 3D-printed their own frames. After doing some more research, I got excited. Not only were these frames 3D printed, but they were custom-designed by the wearer and cost under $2. There were also some other major perks, but I’ll get to those later in this article. Getting to work To get from an idea in my head to a physical pair of glasses, I had to go through three simple steps: Design new frames around my existing lenses Print, make changes, and reprint. Make final adjustments and assemble the frame. Designing I used a free (browser-based) CAD tool called to design the frames, but any other CAD software like Solidworks or Fusion 360 would also work just fine. OnShape I first found a reference model which I could use to model my frames after. Then, I took a top-view picture of my lenses and traced them out in OnShape. After I had the lenses down, I was free to make any frame so long as I could make the frames fit. I decided to go with a more casual look as a first-test, but really any frame design could have worked. I decided to reference an existing design from to save time. here Original CAD design on OnShape Printing To print the design, I ended up using a cheap FDM printer and made the frames in PLA material. Although PLA’s properties are not the best suited for this application, I decided to use it because it would be easier to make adjustments to it after printing. I used 100% infill to give it a bit more weight with a 0.1mm layer height. If you’re planning on printing your own frames and are willing to spend more money for higher quality, I suggest using SLA or SLS. If you look at my frames, you can see some nozzle lines (which are avoidable by using SLA or SLS, or a really well-tuned printer) Final Adjustments Once you have a printed frame, there are some adjustments to be made. You can see that the CAD model of the frames was entirely flat. However, most market frames are very slightly curved at the nose. So, I heated mine up using a hairdryer and bent them at the nosepiece. I also made some small errors when designing the lenses, making them too large to press-fit onto the frames. I once again used my hair drier to soften the plastic and fit the lenses on tightly. Finally, the arm pieces were printed flat as well. To give them a more natural shape (and to prevent the glasses from slipping off my face), I heated them up slightly and pressed them to my head to mold them. Results The final result was a pair of glasses that worked surprisingly well for common tasks. This design was so close to a regular pair that nobody noticed they were 3D printed until they looked closely. You can see some of the small irregularities close up There were some small annoyances like having too little tension in the arms of the glasses (to solve this, I used an M2 screw instead of filament and made sure to not tighten the screw too much.) I would say that these glasses are good enough to be a permanent solution (though you would need a well-tuned printer to get it close to the same quality as regular frames). Since I've designed it myself, I can have any configuration of glasses styles, colors, and designs. Improvements One improvement I would make would be to maintain the same alignment between the lenses and the eyes. I'm pretty sure the lenses are meant to be at a certain position relative to the eye, so this would need to be kept in mind when designing. Fortunately for me, the alignment was really close to the same as my old frames so I didn't have many problems with that. Conclusion This project was really simple but super fun and cheap to make. I never thought I would end up wearing something I've designed and made by myself. In my eyes, this was one small win for me against the eyewear industry. If you liked this article, check out some of my other stuff. I'm an aspiring maker trying to make a change in this world. Got any questions? Insights? I'd love to chat Also published on Medium's ankur-boyed

I Used A 3D Printer To Make My Own Glasses For Under $2

…and they’ll succeed where Google stumbled announced Spectacles, their first hardware product, last Friday evening. Despite being the first hardware effort from our current social darlings, Evan Spiegel and company seem to be playing down the product. In on Snap, only a handful of paragraphs touch on Spectacles. One section sandbags the entire effort: Snapchat a Wall Street Journal feature For the moment, Spectacles appears to be a bit of a lark. At a price of $129.99 and with limited distribution, it won’t be relied upon for significant immediate revenue. Spiegel refers to it as a toy, to be worn for kicks at a barbecue or an outdoor concert — Spectacles video syncs wirelessly to a smartphone, making it easily shareable. “We’re going to take a slow approach to rolling them out,” says Spiegel. “It’s about us figuring out if it fits into people’s lives and seeing how they like it.” If you ignore the Karl Lagerfeld portraits of Spiegel, the whole affair is rather low key. And who can blame them? Launching digital glasses anywhere in California forces comparison’s to Google Glass, a device whose . Glass’ launch video was an followed by an , then . massive, life changing promises were never delivered augmented reality what-if initial live demo by skydivers a Diane Von Furstenburg catwalk appearance Compared to Glass as promised by Google, Spiegel’s “toy” for a “barbeque or an outdoor concert” is rather mundane. But that’s OK. I think Spectacles could not only succeed, but turn out to be a watershed product for Snap. Here’s why: Spectacles Side-Step Glass’ Cultural Challenges Despite their high technical goals, Glass’ biggest challenge was cultural. Google focused so closely on the users of Glass that they forgot everyone around them, leading to the of an anti-social product. I cover this in detail , but in a nutshell: design here Glass’ screen is visible only to it’s user and it’s camera looks out documenting everything except the user, storing content to be shared at the user’s discretion. I believe that these always on, core functions of Glass will prevent it from being welcomed in social settings. Those around the Glass users must implicitely trust the Glass wearer, for they have no idea where the Glass user’s current attention lies and cannot visually confirm whether or not they are currently being captured by Glass. . Google is working so hard to keep technology out of the way that they’re forgetting why it’s important to _see_technology when it’s present This challenge was clearly considered by the team at Snap, because they made several choices which address it directly. They added a bright light to show others you’re recording. They limited video to 10 second clips, not persistent documentation. And, most importantly, they made Spectacles sunglasses. Sunglasses are worn occasionally. Sunglasses aren’t worn inside. Everyone wears sunglasses. Sunglasses make sense during public, fun times. Wear sunglasses inside and you’re considered “that guy,” no onboard camera required. Choosing sunglasses specifically tightly confines Spectacles’ use cases to social acceptable contexts. Spectacles work within cultural norms rather than attempt to redefine them. Spectacles have Job-sian Focus Like Job’s Apple, Snap is prioritizing focus and simplicity above all. Above is . Everything we need to know about Spectacles (save the design and colors, which greets the user prior) is listed here. The promise, “Specs make memories from your perspective,” is simple and clear. Spectacles’ website Compare the above to the : website for the first iPod Same succinct five points, including one clear promise: “1,000 songs in your pocket.” (Watch excepted). This clear promise or vision was made for every Apple product that wasn’t a computer Sure, this seems like best practice, but nearly every tech product which attempts to invent a category ignores this advice. Glass shouldn’t have promised an augmented life, just better memories. Alexa shouldn’t have promised household AI, just music on-demand. (Sure, Alexa’s doing OK, but compare the iPod and Spectacles sites above to . Very different!) Alexa’s homepage Beyond shared restraint, Specs and the iPod both feel/felt like experiments. They’re odd, but inoffensive, and I bet Specs have similarly underwhelming sales. They’ll do fine, but won’t light the world on fire. As Spiegel said, “We’re going to take a slow approach to rolling them out. It’s about us figuring out if it fits into people’s lives and seeing how they like it.” When Snap Finds the Formula, Spectacles will be Everywhere Specs are $129.99. . Specs are already cheap enough for a fashion item. The electronic components are even cheaper. Stock Ray-Bans are $150 We’ll have to wait for a proper teardown, but Specs probably contain Bluetooth, a dab of storage for a few shots, several chips to run the whole thing, and a cellphone camera from several years ago. (Another benefit to making them sunglasses? The camera only needs to work in brightlight.) This package is already cheap and will only get cheaper. If Snap cracks the code and figures out this can fit in the fun parts of people’s lives, expect this kit to propagate everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if the salesperson at LensCrafters asks you if you’d like your sunglasses with Specs, right after asking about anti-glare coating. Snap will pursue a good price point and small sizes before they add a second camera for VR recording. VR will come after Snap cracks the cultural code for sharing videos with Specs when there’s a way for people to consumer VR video at scale. and (What will also be fun to watch: all the Shenzhen knockoffs. Everything in Specs can be sourced from the warehouses of smartphone parts in Southeast China. Expect clones for <$100 in under three months. But Snap shouldn’t worry that: these won’t be as simple or connected to a giant network.) Everyone hyping VR got very excited when they saw two ports in the frame. Snap Wants to be the Heir to Kodak Specs, and the way Spiegel talks about them, is classic Kodak. They make “memories”, not videos. You can almost hear Don Draper. Capturing and sharing memories is great terrain, proven to be an insanely large market, with no dominant leader. Facebook has irons in the fire and isn’t in the brand ballpark: Facebook is about communication, not memories. Jobs aimed Apple in this direction with his Digital Hub strategy. But Apple veered away from the hub and diluted focus with the Watch. Google is being Google. is great, but it and the rest of Google’s offering is about intelligent discovery, not memories. Photos Spiegel has : taken aim He’s studied the histories of firms like and Polaroid and how they pitched themselves to the public. “First it was make a photo,” Spiegel says, characterizing the way people would visit a studio akin to the one we’re in now for a formal sitting. “Then it was take a photo,” as portable cameras let people capture casual snapshots. “And finally it became give a photo,” starting with instant Polaroids handed to friends at a party and evolving into smartphone cameras that let you zip your selfie to anyone on the planet. Kodak Snap Just Threw a Bomb in the Action Cam Market Snap just took a specialty product and showed how it might become mass. Not an epic camera for epic people during epic times, but a fun camera for fun people during fun times. Which market would you rather have? (By the way, head down to Times Square in December and look for tourists with GoPros strapped to their chest. Opportunity often looks like lots of people doing awkward things.) (Another awkward behavior? People with GoPros and drones spending entire plane flights trying to edit down their streams into something actually consumable. That 10-second limit is a smart choice by Snap.) Snap has the Best Brief in the World Right Now Snapchat has a massive audience of people who use the app to have fun and share that fun. It must be exciting to wake up every morning, tasked with figuring out how to deliver on that promise. I’ll admit, I’ve been a Snapchat skeptic for a bit now. I didn’t buy the VR/AR argument, as photo filters are rather simple and a very constrained challenge. And Facebook’s continued dominance in social looked immovable. But Specs crystalizes what Snap stands for in a way I hadn’t realized prior. A friend at Snap responded to this remark, sent via text, very quickly: “It’s funny, Evan’s been preaching this stuff for years. Just takes one story or product to bring it all together.”

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