As you may know, I now wear 3D-printed glasses.
I’ve been wearing glasses for decades, since age 3, and because I’m lazy, I never take off my glasses even when I sleep, I’m not sure how, but even when I’m asleep, I never turn into a position that would damage my glasses. Decades of habit I guess…
Anyhow, the point is, apart from when I shower and when I go to the swimming pool, those 3D-printed glasses are sitting squarely on my face all day, every day. So probably close to 23.5 hours a day.
And I’m happy to report, PLA and PETG seem to have zero effects on my skin. No rash, no redness, no itching, zero discomfort. I’ve worn each material for at least 2 months straight and they seem perfectly fine.
I don’t see any degradation of either material either, even after being exposed to acidity and oil from my skin for hours on end. I didn’t expect PETG to react to anything, since it’s more or less the same stuff soda bottles are made of, but I thought maybe PLA would degrade. But it doesn’t. Perhaps it degrades slower than I anticipated. I’ll report back in a year 🙂
They’re plenty strong, thin though they are. If you account for the shortcomings of 3D-printed parts in your design, you can make them quite strong without adding that much bulk.
But mostly the thing that protects glasses in this style is that they’re quite narrow, so the temples are almost flush with your head along the entire length. So even if you lay your head on a pillow, or you get hit from the side, it won’t break your glasses. Before wearing those 3D-printed frames, I used to wear the exact same ones made of metal and I never broke them either solely for that reason, despite being rather active.
Vintage style round frames are a lot more durable than more modern, more stylish wider frames. The cost of course is looking like you’re a time traveler from 1910 🙂
Dude you already need glasses so do something good for your eyes and seal the whole thing in epoxy resin or something. It’s certainly not good for your health to get microparticles in your eyes and mucous membranes all the time… If it breaks (e.g. because you have an unfortunate fall or someone accidentally knocks the door in front of your head), there should also be fewer fragments that could pose a risk to the eye if it is sealed. Eyesight is too precious and it doesn’t take much more work, although that wouldn’t be an argument against it anyway, as health should have a higher priority.
Otherwise I can only say: good work. A good printer owner who makes something really useful with the tool.
Wh… What? :🙂 PLA and PETG are thermoplastics, not asbestos. They don’t shed microparticles all the time. Not to mention, they are considered very safe.
Have you tried breaking a PLA or PETG part? They don’t shatter into shrapnel.
Are you sure you’re talking about the same materials? 🙂
Thanks!
I don’t compare it with asbestos… rather with the plastic you ingest by drinking and eating… or by breathing in the fine abrasion of car tires. You don’t have to add extra plastic to your eyes. So when I break something made of PETG, it has already happened that it splintered. Well, in the end it’s your eyes and I only meant well.
I know and I appreciate.
All I said was, FDM plastics don’t spend their lives shedding particules after printing. As for PETG creating splinters, I haven’t seen this happen - and I would have because I printed a few glasses temples that didn’t print quite right and crumpled them in my hand, and they sort of broke limply in my hand rather snap sharply.
Maybe you have a slightly different variant?
Anyway, even if it did do that, I’d say the risk probably isn’t greater than acetate glasses frames. When that crap ages and dries up, it creates nasty bits when it breaks. Yet it’s widely used to make frames.
Well, it wasn’t a spectacle frame and was a bit more robust and rigid. After printing and as soon as it goes on the nose, it is permanently exposed to UV radiation and external influences.
Well, my main frames with the progressive lenses that I wear outdoors most of the time is printed in PETG, and that’s pretty much impervious to UV. My PLA frames are near glasses I wear only indoors when I work at the computer. On top of that, I live way up north, and UVs are so scarce here we have to take vitamin-D supplements year round 🙂 So I guess I’ll be okay on that front.
As for abrasion on my nose, I don’t think that will produce particles that will fly into my eyes. More likely, it would create some contact rash on the skin of my nose or something, and it doesn’t - which is what I’m reporting in this here post. Other than that contact point and my ears, the frames aren’t really rubbing on anything anywhere else.