Introduction: Laser Cut Cardboard Lamp

I'm currently doing an internship in Fab Lab Isafjördur in Iceland (https://www.fablabs.io/labs/fablabisafjordur), they needed some extra lighting and I saw this lamp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7SUUgLO7o in youtube and decided to make my own version of it. Instead of doing the cutting by hand I used laser cutter to cut the pieces and Inkscape for the design. I also added some plastic tabs to the bottom so that you can use it in the ceiling or turn it around and use it as a table lamp. It's made from recycled material.

Materials are 4mm MDF for the poles, bottom and top layer, sheet of light brown paper for the inside of the lamp and the rest is 4mm cardboard. I also made another version of the lamp with 3mm cardboard with same design, only difference is there will be three instead of two small pieces to keep the layers off from each other.

Step 1: PDF and SVG Files

Here is the Inkscape version of the print and ready to cut pdf files. Part 1 is all the MDF parts and rest of the pdf files are cardboard files. Only the rings in part 6 and 7 has different size small layer pieces so to make it easier to put together you might wanna keep those separate from the other pieces.

Between every ring there are 2 (4mm) or 3 (3mm) small pieces to make the caps between the layers. The files are made for 3mm cardboard, but you can easily make it to 4mm just by adding less pieces.

When cutting the pieces with laser I used Speed 12, Power 100, Frequency 500 for the MDF and Speed 40, Power 100 and Frequency 2500 for the cardboard. Inside paper was cut by hand.

Step 2: Assembling

I started the layering by putting the biggest MDF -ring in the bottom and putting the poles up. After that I added two small pieces on each side (three on 3mm version), then added another big ring and went on until it was time for the cover MDF plate. Before adding that you wanna cut the paper and put it inside the lamp like shown in the picture, after that you can add rest of the layers and glue the end pieces, I used wood glue. Also make sure that the cardboard pieces are layered the same way, makes it look cleaner. You can make the lamp without the inside paper and get some stripe shadow effects on the wall.