By Luxexcel

Project Case Study:
Smartphone flashes can’t light objects that are far away. They cast a wide beam to evenly light close subjects. But what if you need a collimated light beam? With f.lens you can collect light rays and generate a brighter light beam. Able to light up subjects up to 10 meters away.

Photo courtesy of f.lens

The Challenge:
Can you use your smartphone as a flashlight? It didn’t seem possible until the team started lab-testing their smartphones. It was possible, now they just needed a manufacturing process to rapidly create their products.

Problem Definition:
Every smartphone has a flashlight function. But it is just not good for lighting up faraway subjects. As such the f.lens project was created. The idea for the f.lens came up because the creators often go hiking in the hills to enjoy beautiful sunsets. Different questions came to mind, like “Why can’t a phone be a real flashlight?”. The creators took this idea to their lab and tested the limits of their smartphones. They found out that is wat actually possible.

At Luxexcel we 3D printed the lens for the f.lens team. This optic fits in another 3D printed part, the host. This led to a small, lightweight solution that you can take along with you wherever you go.

Photo courtesy of f.lens

The Solution:
f.lens is the first booster for your smartphone flashlight. With it’s far-reaching beam you can light up objects that are far away. F.lens amplifies your light by ten times. Besides, it’s easy to take with you as you can magnetically attach it to your smartphone and it fits on your keychain.

“Luxexcel’s 3D printing technology enabled us to make use of rapid prototyping for optics. With this unique technology we were able to refine our product and iterate until we were satisfied with the product design of the f.lens.” Marco Bozzola, f.lens

Photo courtesy of f.lens

Unique Project Features

• No Upfront Investments: Thanks to the zero need for tooling, no working capital was lost to molds or tooling parts;
• Fast Delivery: Following the very short lead time of only 5 business days, the f.lens team got the custom parts delivered in days rather than weeks or even months, enabling them to speed up their product development process.

About f.lens
“Flens” is the conjoined effort of three young Italian professionals, namely Marco (27), Ivan (27) and Alessandro (20). They have combined their knowledge about engineering, web development and media content productions to launch the f.lens product. They have done a Kickstarter project before (Relio), a professional photographic illuminator, with great success. Official website: www.relio.it/flens

About Luxexcel
Luxexcel is a 3D printing service for products that demand the highest standard in transparency.

We have invented the Printoptical® Technology, a revolutionary and globally unique digital additive manufacturing process to create optical components like, micro structures, freeform lenses, arrays, prisms, fresnel’s or other complex decorative designed (optical) surfaces.

This innovative and patented “One-Step-Cad-to-Optic” process allows us to offer optical designers around the globe a new and unique 3D printing service. After the online upload and ordering process, the design will be printed, checked, and distributed to the customer within 5 working days.

Luxexcel Group BV. is headquartered in Kruiningen, The Netherlands, was founded in 2009 and recently built an additive manufacturing competence center in Kruiningen (NL) dedicated to 3D printed functional optics.

Source: Luxexcel