Rhinestone and 3D Print Molecule Necklaces

I was looking at some projects on the site the other day and saw a laser cut Serotonin necklace and thought it would be fun to make a 3D printed version that also has rhinestones! I fiddled with the design until It came out just the way I wanted it and this is the results! I thought Serotonin was a good molecule for this project but decided to branch out and so far I have also made Dopamine, Adrenaline, GABA, and Caffeine. I'll talk a little about each molecule in Step 2.

If anyone is interested in the designs with holes instead of inserts for Rhinestones, let me know. It should be a fairly quick and easy process to adapt the design for that.

If you are interested in molecules but not as necklaces, check out these molecule ornaments.

Etsy

I'm also selling these necklaces on Etsy! Check them out :) Serotonin - Dopamine - Adrenaline - GABA - Caffeine

Instructable 290

Supplies

For Printing:

3D Printer of choice - I have a Prusa MK3
1.75mm PLA Filament in color of choice - I used...
Copper
Silver
Bronze

For Jewelry Making:

Glue - I keep experimenting but this time I used Weld-On 4 Acrylic Adhesive
Pointed Back Clear 4mm/SS16 Rhinestones, can be hard to find but I bought mine here on Etsy
Fine Chain
Clasp
2 - 4mm Jump Rings
1 - 5mm Jump Ring
Jewelry Pliers
Tweezers

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Step 1: Designing the Molecules

I used Tinkercad to design the molecules and it was a very finicky process (not because of Tinkercad but because of the way I wanted the design to look).

I started by designing the parts I needed to make it. This consisted of an oval cylinder and a cylinder with a cone cutout for a rhinestone. I used an oval cylinder for the connector pieces because I didn't want those pieces to just be normal rectangles, I wanted to soften it up a bit and give it some more detail.

In order to get the dimensions about right, I started by bringing in a basic design of the molecule and then scaling it to the length and width I wanted. When I had that, I took my starting pieces and started putting it together. Above you can see how I worked to get the 3 piece intersections and 2 piece intersections to make sure the corners and joins all looked right. Once I finished a design, I constantly exported it and brought it into the slicer to find any errors. Then I went back to Tinkercad and made alterations and repeated the process until I had the final design I wanted.

Since some of the molecules were similar, when I could, I worked with a finished design and altered it to make the new design such as Dopamine and Adrenaline.

I ended up making:

Serotonin - well-being and happiness
Dopamine - reward-motivated behavior (also sometimes considered the pleasure-seeking molecule)
Adrenaline - causing increased heart rate, it is the molecule of energy
Caffeine - is a psychoactive drug, known for causing awakeness
GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) - reduces excitability / anti-anxiety

Step 2: Print!

I didn't really do anything special for printing except for the 100% infill to make them as sturdy as possible.

Step 3: Gluing

Start by gluing the rhinestones in their spots. Tweezers make it easier to put the rhinestones down on the glue.

Step 4: Assemble the Necklace

Make it however you want, but for mine, I took two pieces of fine chain at about 6.5" long and connected them to the molecule using the 4mm jump rings.

On the other end of the chains, I attached the larger jump ring to one and the clasp to the other.