Illuminated Optical Centre Punch

A variation of a recently published design

There was a feature in a recent engineering forum by Nell’s Mechanical Man Cave regarding a 3D printed Optical Centre Punch. The design had an angled magnified side window allowing the viewing of the punch point. This conveniently allowed viewing of the point without having to swap out the viewer lens.

The author was offering a free download of the STL files for the punch body and also two versions of a base print. I made contact and received the print files and duly printed out the body and base models.

To get a better understanding I suggest you view the YouTube post on the following link :

My immediate impression of the design was positive with the only drawback being the limited light available inside the punch body when trying to align the punch point.

I started a dialogue with Neil and suggested to him that the addition of LED lighting inside the punch body might solve this problem. Neil was positive and supportive of the suggestion and the result is detailed below.

I re-modelled the punch in Fusion 360 and after some experimentation decided to mount two white light LEDs inside the dome of the body with the associated battery and switch mounted in the top surface of the body under a removeable cap. Here are a couple of visual views out of Fusion.

You can download my full write up and updated STL files from the following ZIP file link.

optical-centre-punch-STL-and-PDF Download

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