Introduction: 3d Printed and Laser Cut Lamp (with Extra Features)

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Today we are going to make a lamp made out of a 3d model and some laser cutted wood. It also features a RGB LED. If you want you can always add custom features. I added two extra features namely a few buttons to manually change color and a little piezo speaker for some music. And finally I printed a Arduino case so everything looks neat.

This instructable was a school assignment.

Needed parts for the lamp:

  1. Lamp 3D files (Thingiverse)
  2. ABS plastic
  3. MDF wood (optional see step two)
  4. RGB 10mm LED
  5. 2x 180 ohm resistor
  6. 1x 330 ohm resistor
  7. Male breadboard cables
  8. Power supply (if you're not using arduino USB power)

Arduino case: link

Used Tools

  1. 3D printer
  2. Laser Cutter
  3. Soldering iron

Used Programs

  1. Google Sketchup
  2. Adobe Illustrator
  3. Meshlab
  4. Cura

Attachments

Step 1: Get an 3D Print

Choose an 3D print you want to use for your lamp. I used this one: Pixar lamp model.

Be cautious which model you use. Keep in mind that there are different 3d printers and materials. As example I used an Ultimaker as printer and ABS as material.

Step 2: Getting Files Ready to Lasercut

If there are some flat items in your 3D model you may consider to laser cut them out something else. Like wood for example. In the model I used for my Pixar lamp there were some flat parts. So I decided to laser cut them out of wood. To do this you need to convert your 3d model into an 2d model. There are a few ways to do this. I did it with Sketchup Pro and Adobe Illustrator because my model also had some Sketchup files included. I never used Sketchup or Illustrator so it took some time to find the options I needed. Here is what you need to do:

Inside Sketchup:

  1. Load the .skp file into Sketchup
  2. Delete all the parts you don't want to 3d print
  3. Go to file export as 2D Graphic
  4. Select PDF

Inside Adobe Illustrator

  1. Load the .pdf file into Illustrator
  2. Check for mistakes
  3. Go to file save as
  4. Select .svg
  5. Leave the standard settings and select ok

Step 3: Start Printing

After you've got all the files correct you can start printing the 3d parts. First of all I needed to excluded some pieces from the model because i'm going to laser cut them out of wood. As editing program i used meshlab. This is an free program for model editing. Again it took some time to find the right options. But it turned out nice. If you are using my model then you don't need to use meshlab

For the 3d printing i used a program called cura which comes with the ultimaker. Please be very cautious which settings you'll use. For a successful print you'll need the right settings. The settings I used were: scale 0.9, thickness 0.8, speed: 50 mm/s.

It took some time to find the right settings. Luckily there is something called google where you can find the right settings for certain materials.

Step 4: Start Lasercutting

After you printed all the 3d models it's time to laser cut the lasting pieces out of wood. The program I used for that is Adobe Illustrator. Again please be cautious and pick the right material and settings otherwise the cutting will fail. In my case I used wood as material (mdf). Also I needed to make the lines in my vector files red (RGB 255.0.0) and line thickness 0.01mm. Because I scaled down my 3d print I also needed to scale down these parts so my settings were at 0.90% If you are sure about your material and settings you can send it to your latercutter.

It was the first time I used a laser cutter so I've done some test prints before I printed the final product. I you are not use you can always make some testprints.

Step 5: Putting Everything Together

Now it's time to assemble the lamp. If you're using the same model I used. You can download sketchup viewer or the full version to open the .skp file. Inside this file you'll find an detailed version how to assemble the lamp.

Step 6: And There Was Light!

Finally the lamp has been finished. Only one thing is missing. What is a lamp without light!? My idea was to put a tiny rgb led inside the lamp and program it to fluidly change color.

An rgb led has four pins. red-ground-green-blue. I will include an datasheet of which pin is what. Please be cautious which resistor you use on what pin. If you wire it wrong the led can be damaged. The 330 ohm resistor goes on the red pin. The two 180 ohm resistors go on the green and blue pin. The other side of the red-green-blue pin are connected to one of the pwm digital pins on the arduino. In the testing phase I used a breadboard to connect everything. When everything worked I soldered my ohm board.

I have soldered things before. So I hadn't a hard time putting everything together. If you haven't soldered before it might be helpful watching some tutorials on youtube.

Step 7: Extra Feature 1: Manual Color Change With Buttons

Like I said in the intro I added some extra features. This step will cover feature 1 and is fully optional.

For the buttons you can follow this. In this tutorial is listed what items you'll need. It explains everything (better than I ever would :P).

As I said before I will include all the code in one file.

Step 8: Extra Feature 2: Adding Some Sound (Final Product)

This step will cover the second feature I added namely a piezo speaker.

Needed parts: piezo element, breadboard cables (optional header)

It's really easy to use. Connect the positive side of the speaker to a digital pin of your arduino and the ground side to the ground of your arduino. I used a header to make it easier to connect everything.

Secondly download a song you want to play. I used the mario theme song. If you want a certain song try googling "songname piezo arduino".

Finally the project is ready. Have fun and leave a picture of your product!

Step 9: Make It Pretty

So the project is done. But I thought something was still missing. After an evening of thinking I thought why not make the arduino itself look a bit more pretty. After browsing the thingiverse a bit I found this awesome case. See the intro for the link.

Again I use Cura and the ultimaker to fabricate this. The settings I used were: scale 1.0, thickness 0.8, speed: 50 mm/s. But again the settings may vary if you have a different printer.

Step 10: End Reflection

This step had nothing to do with the finished product but I needed to do this for the assignment.

Project reflection: During the making of the project there were a few problems. First of all I had never used any of the programs and machines. Throughout the semester I became more and more familiar with the programs and machines. I have learned a lot! Not only have I learned what you can do with the programs and machine but I also learned how to design my own little project and bring it to live. Otherwise there weren't any other problems the machines did what they were supposed and i've got all information from the internet.

Conclusion: This was an awesome experience and I'm most likely making more projects.