3D Printed Light-Up Ring

A ring for every occasion, with a little circuitry flair! In this project, we'll make a ring base that holds a CR2032 battery and and LED, and then make a topper for it! You can play around with the different tops to customize to whatever your style is. This project was part of our makerspace Fashion Technology class.

1. TinkerCAD
2. 3D Printer (we use PLA filament to print)
3. CR2032 Battery
4. LED (I'm using a 5mm diameter LED)
5. Needle nose pliers

Using the Tube from the basic shape menu, adjust the Wall Thickness to 2. Either using the slider or the dimensions on the ring itself, determine the size (diameter) of your ring.

The height of our ring is 5mm.

If you are able to 3D print any ring sizing tools ahead printing your LED ring, it can help you figure out your ring size! My ring size is between a 6-7, so I settled on a diameter of 21.3mm.

I've also adjusted my sides to 64 to allow the ring to be as smooth as possible.

To allow the ring to have a little adjustability when worn, take a Hole Box and cut out a small slit, centered on the back of your ring.

Group your shapes together.

We can model a CR2032 battery with a cylinder that has a 20mm diameter and that is 3mm thick. I've added 1mm to each of my dimensions to account for my printer tolerances, making my dimensions 21mm dia x 4mm thick, and then turned my "battery" into a hole.

Add another cylinder to your work plane (or copy/paste your hole and make it solid), and make it slightly larger to encompass your battery. I've gone with 26mm diameter / 6mm thick to keep relatively thin walls.

Select both shapes and align them together at ALL the middle points. If you want to visually check that your shapes are aligned, you can turn your outer cylinder color to transparent! If everything looks good, while you still have both shapes selected, group your two shapes.

Using two hole boxes, cut out the top and bottom off your hollow cylinder, just leaving you with a middle band.

On the middle band, take one more hole box and create a recess on ONE side of the battery holder (see picture). This is so we can easily access the battery when we assemble.

Create a 2mm diameter hole through your battery holder, roughly in the middle of the band and up against one of the sided of the battery cut out (see image).

Duplicate the hole and create 3 more evenly space out holes that cut through only HALF of the battery holder (not all the way through the back).

These are the holds that the legs of your LED will go through during assembly. Group it all together.

NOTE: The middle two holes are optional to account for different leg lengths of LEDs - the only two holes that MUST be present are the left and the right most ones.

Bring your ring and battery holder together. You might nee to rotate your ring so that the slit is facing towards the back. Drag the battery holder on to the ring such that you can't see the ring through the walls of your battery holder, but so everything is touching. Then align center on your Y and Z axis.

And...you guessed it! Group it together.

To make any custom top for our ring, we first need to start with yet another ring! If we recall back to Step 2, the OD (outer diameter) of our battery holder is 26mm.

Make a hole cylinder 26mm in diameter and at least 7mm thick. Create an outer ring cylinder of 30mm and the same thickness. Align and group these shapes together.

This is your connector for any custom top you want to design for your ring! We want a tight fit that can be pushed on to the ring for whatever design is on top. Make a few copies of this part for future designs!

Make a design using the basic shapes and add onto the connector. Make sure you cut a hole for your LED in the middle of your design. I've cut out a 7mm hole for my 5mm LED just in case my LED isn't perfectly in the center of my ring after assembly.

Prepare your files for your printer of choice. Make sure you are exporting the ring base and the topper as two separate files so you can swap out your tops!

You'll need some supports in this print as the part of the ring that goes around your finger will be floating off the print bed. However, in this orientation, you won't need to clean supports from little holes!

I've had success printing at layer height as low as .28 & 10% infill, so play around with print settings best for your printer

Take an LED - remember the longer leg of the LED belongs to the positive side of the battery (it's always better to be MORE POSITIVE, so the leg with MORE is positive!!). Stick the positive leg of the LED through the hole that goes all the way through the battery holder.

Stick the negative leg through the far hold on the opposite side of the battery holder. Using needle nose pliers, bend the legs and coerce the legs, threading them through, until the LED light is basically flush to the battery holder and roughly in the middle. The long (positive) leg will go through the back and bend to be flush to the back of the battery holder, and the shorter (negative) leg will fold to be flush to the INSIDE of the battery holder.

The idea here is the positive leg touches the side of the CR2032 battery (for a + connection), and then negative leg will touch the negative side . Slide your battery into place with the negative side pointing out to test your connection! Once in, you can put your topper on.

If you need to adjust your LED placement based on where your battery sits, you can adjust the placement of your LED with your needle nose pliers.

NOTE: I am not using the middle two holes as I did not need them with my standard LED. My positive leg went all the way through the hole that pokes out the back, and my negative leg went through the hole on the edge of the opposite side.

What's a statement piece if you don't show it off! What's awesome about this project is how much you can build off of it! ie. Try making a top that is hollow and glows when the LED is inside. What other shapes could have an LED at the center?

It is recommended to keep one LED color per base (it's hard to undo and redo the LED in the ring base). And as is the beauty of 3D printing, if the ring doesn't quite fit...just print a new one!

No matter what, you're sure to light up a room with your new ring!!