Relio Flens: 3D Printing Used to Rapidly Engineer Smart Mobile Flash Light Booster
Boost your smartphone’s LED flash up to 10 times! The Relio Flens turns the flash light of your mobile device into a narrow, powerful and directed light beam. Get ready to tackle the night by seeing and be seen better!
Stop Fearing the Dark!
The Flens add-on is intended for everyone who needs a better control of it’s mobile phone’s flashlight. With Flens, you can finally use your smartphone’s flash light for a variety of renewed purposes. You’ll be able to enrich your nightly adventures or to have safe walks in the dark. Or use it for emergency situations, repairs or inspections. Simply functional light when and where you need it!
3D Printing for Product Engineering
The team of Relio succesfully applied various 3D printing technologies during the engineering stage. Both the lens holder and the lens itself were additively manufactured.
For the lens holder, Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technology was used with a basic PLA filament. For the optical lens part, Relio used the rapid prototyping service for optical components of Luximprint. Thus, they were able to test a couple of lens variations in an iterative way before moving to final series manufacturing. The manufacturing speed and design flexibility were of great advantage to come to a fast and cost-effective solution.
The engineering time, finally, was significantly reduced by cutting away the extensive time that is usually needed to get optical prototypes in place. The use of 3D printing for your engineering purposes makes very much sense!
How does the Relio f.lens Work?
The Relio Flens catches, collects and concentrates shallow LED light beams, turning your phone into an actual, tight-focussed flash light. The flashlight collimator is made of premium, first class raw materials. The final lens product is made of BK07 glass, embedded into a sandblasted aliminum body. The tiny add-on can be easily attached to your mobile by tiny neodinum magnets. A small carbon-steel adhesive washer is applied around the flash of the phone to provide magnetic coupling.
Flens is specifically designed for all flash equipped Apple-devices and selected Windows and Android devices. It comes in one size that fits every compatible mobile device.
100% Made in Italy
The product is proudly developed, built and assembled in the hills of Northern Italy by the very promising team of young professionals at Relio. They deliver a great proof of how 3D printing can ease and empower the engineering of functional and smart lighting devices for both niche- and commodity markets.
Support f.lens on Kickstarter!
Are you impressed by this project? Consider helping Relio by supporting them on Kickstarter. Just leave them a ‘high-five’ or purchase a single or even bundle of Flenses yourself!
