? How to create a top mesh or screen effect?

[iabarry 0]

I have some LEDs on a circuit board and have created (in FreeCad) a 5mm thick overlay with holes for the LEDs. The LED currently shines through an outline. To diffuse the emitted light, I'd like to cover the existing 3d printed overlay with a mesh or screen effect. The LED would shine through when illuminated and be less harsh. 

 

My current plan is to place a 0.1mm layer on top (in FreeCad), then have Cura make a 1 layer top surface. I've thought to edit the Gcode and change the Flow Rate to 50% or ? for the top layer.

 

Is there a way to tell Cura to space the lines ONLY in the top layer?  I'm trying to avoid a laborious effort in FreeCad to create a mesh manually.

Possibly another approach?

 

Suggestions much appreciated.

Thanks,

Barry

[smartavionics 288]

 

Maybe something like this ?

 

 

That is a rectangular model (aka mesh) that is printed normally and another circular model that is given a mesh type of "modify settings for overlap with other models" and then it is given no walls or top/bottom layers and an infill style and density that could be what you want to shine your light through. So I am thinking that you could position a number of these modifier meshes, one for each LED. It would be a bit fiddly to set up but maybe would provide what you want.

[iabarry 0]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't immediately understand the suggestion. The idea of a mesh as a separate piece seems kinda painful due to fragility. Removing it from the build plate could be a problem as well as alignment to the larger part.

 

Since working more with Cura, I've decided to add a raft and have carefully set the raft params to have only 3-4 layers and to be rather porous by setting the line width (0.3) and spacing (0.6). My preference would be for this on the top not the bottom, but will try it. Not that many params for the top layer to do what I want.

 

Now I'm pondering a gcode file edit to put the raft on top!

 

[iabarry 0]

Moving the Raft to the top is a bit painful as it screws up all of the lower Z values. As there are only a few Raft layers, I can copy those lines and add them to the end of the gcode file. I will only need to modify a few Z values for the added layers.

btw I want to write you directly re smartavionics and sensors.

[iabarry 0]

I've created a nice porous raft, but I don't want it on the bottom, I want it on top. Using an edtor, I've gone into the gcode file and copied the Raft section and pasted it near the end of the file. The Z settings have all been modified to continue the print.

 

Is there anything else I need to do?