Introduction: Voronoï Lamp

About: I build thing for fun. Mostly with the laser cutter since I'm pretty clumsy.

This lamp is using a Voronoï's diagram to set the shape and size of its cells.

It have been conceived to be place upon a specific furniture. Setting the Vornoï diagram is the tricky part of this lamp, you may easily make a lamp with the dimensions you need.

Step 1: Drawing the Voronoï Diagram in Inkscape (1)

You may use Inksacpe to draw the Voronoi diagram.

You have to begin to set a document with the exact dimensions for each side of the lamp which need cutting.

Drawing shapes of different sizes will force the Voronoi diagram function to produce cells with different sizes. I wanted a diagram with small cells in the lower part and big ones on the upper part.

Step 2: Drawing the Voronoï Diagram in Inkscape (2)

Then you can produce the Vornoï diagram.

The inkscape function can be found in Extensions>Generate from path>Voronoi Diagram

By using the page as the box for your diagram, you can get et diagram with the dimensions you need.

After beeing generated, the diagram doesn't have a lot of thickness.

Step 3: Giving Thickness to the Shape of the Diagram

The diagram is generated as a pattern in inkscape. You need to convert it from pattern to an object you can edit. You can do it in menu Obect>Pattern>Pattern to Object.

When it's done you can make the lines thickers and then keep only the outside shape. You'll certainly need to ungroup to have the shape of each segment.

A boolean operation (ctrl+) will give you one diagram with enough thickness to be cut.

Giving more thinckness will make your object bigger than the document. You'll have to size it down if you want to keep your pattern in the right dimension.

Step 4: Drawing the Lamp

When your diagram is done, the light itself is simple to make. It's just a box with a lamp holder.

Don't forget to make a hole for the wire to exit.

Laser cutting will make burnmarks differently on each side. You can mirror one of the side to have the same apperance on each one.

Step 5: Setting the Lamps

It' a simple part which helps to hold two lamps.

Step 6: Building the Frame

You can glue it with classic white glue for wood. Nothing special here.

Step 7: Glueing the Paper

I used a light paper used for model aircraft. I poured a little water in the wood glue and brushed it on one side.

When the paper is applied to it, it becomes wet and it's a good thing because it shrinks after that and you paper will be very neat.

Step 8: The File

The project has been made in the Lorem fablab in Paris (lorem.org)
The source file is an inkscape SVG file.

This project is free: Free art licence or CC by sa 4.0