I had in mind large, unobtanium outlier caps.Originally Posted by Bob Salomon
I had in mind large, unobtanium outlier caps.
I have a hunter penrose lens, made by wray, that came with half a tin can lined with felt as a cap.
My big brass lenses I make my own out of cardboard and leather with felt inner lining.
When I got my first used LF lens that didn't come with one of the caps, I just went ahead and made a somewhat-parametric model in Fusion 360 and 3D printed one out of TPU. So far its worked fine. I recently got some enlarger lenses that were also missing caps (apparently some new enlarger lenses come in screw-thread cases and don't even ship with rear caps!). So I just adjusted the model, and printed more in the correct size.
My design has some "ribbing" around the inside diameter, like regular caps, so that the seal isn't airtight. Between that and the flexible TPU material, they go on/off pretty easily while still being snug.
The next design I make will definitely have ribbing. I am just getting started with fusion 360. It’s almost too much for a new user. The fact that for 20$ I can have custom caps for each lens is perfect. If down the road I wanna spend some extra for something more stylish I can
For me, already having the tools and materials, it wasn't much of a leap. I actually learned how to use Fusion 360 to design something far more complicated than a lens cap (after getting fed up with the "jankiness" of using FreeCAD). Thankfully I found some decent tutorial videos online that helped get me started.
Here's a link to my model, in case you want to download it and use it as a starting point:
https://a360.co/2KyOvzu
Notice the last step at: https://skgrimes.com/products/lens-caps
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
Just do it your self
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Nice work, Alex!
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
I've always just taken a spare plastic lens cap that was close in size, and heated it up and reformed it to fit. If you need to shrink it more than what that will allow, just make some plastic slurry, which is made from spare pieces of the same type of plastic dissolved in some kind of solvent like acetone, and paint it onto the inside lip of the lens cap. Once the acetone dries, you can either heat form it to the lens, or sand it down to fit. They usually don't look pretty, but they work and don't cost me a dime to make.
Don't know what size you're looking for, but the first place I look is B&H Photo. They have a pretty extensive stock of OEM and generic caps. I didn't do a careful search, but just looking quickly I found 82mm and 85mm ones. The most expensive ones are about $20, which is a lot less than having someone make a cap, and a lot more time efficient than building one. (If you can find one in the right size)
I have a couple of older lenses (an Artar and a Dogmar) that sport Canon and Nikon caps. They make my OCD hurt a little, but they work and they were cheap.
My favorites are the Kaiser brand caps. They're soft plastic push-ons with no printing, but be aware that they're sized by the outside diameter of the lens and not the screw-in thread size.
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