LED "tealight" holders for mounting to Ender 3

thingiverse

I needed some LED lights for my Ender 3 to monitor prints in a dark room via OctoPrint and light up photos for OctoLapse. I had a stash of cheap LED "tealights" left over from a Halloween costume for my son, so I designed a simple housing for the lights and a lid to keep them in place. To mount them on the Ender 3, I used a rail as a clip on the Ender 3 Rail Camera Mount by Dauler. My LEDs are color changing and I've had some success with creating "mood lighting" for my OctoLapses and getting weird strobing effects using the color changing settings. I designed a single rail clip version that can hang from the top of the Ender 3 rail and a double clip version that can be used in any wider extruded rails. They are interchangeable but will be slightly off center if you use the single rail holder in a double rail or the double rail holder in a single rail. I'm not sure if these cheap LED lights come in a standard size. Mine are 36.7 mm in diameter by 22.2 mm tall. I bought a 10 pack of color change LED submersible tealights for $18 on Amazon. There are many options out there that use the same basic remote, but you may need to resize this if you use something else. In my setup, the lights fit easily and the lid keeps them in place. To print the LED holders (single or double rail), you'll need to use supports. I printed this in Cura using "support interface" with no trouble removing the supports with a single pull. It's crucial that you have "support interface" enabled or you'll encounter more trouble. I set my supports to 80 degrees, which will produce supports for the base of the LED holder but not the rail clips. Keep track of how high you're planning on printing on the Z-axis to avoid hitting the Bowden tube with the lights.