After seeing an ad for a cool looking glass block lamp, I decided I could make one myself and improve upon the features of the original! Original design is by Kismas. First, here's my supply list:
- Black PLA filament
- 4x Tapered heat-set thread inserts from McMaster-Carr: Item No. 94180A353
- 4x M4 (8mm in length) low profile socket head screw from McMaster-Carr: Item No. 93070A098. IF YOU LIVE IN CHICAGO, I'll trade you these McMaster parts for a cup of coffee :)
- NodeMCU ESP32s microcontroller: Overkill for this project but if you're crafty you can turn this into a wifi-controlled lamp. You can get these boards in packs, or even super cheap from AliExpress. If you want a smaller or simpler board, maybe go for a teensy-type board but you'll need to do the reprogramming yourself.
- Long micro-USB cable (that isn't just a power cable): Depending on if you get a different board, you may need a different cable like USB-C
- Adafruit Mini Skinny NeoPixel Digital RGB LED Strip: LINK. This is if you want to follow exactly what I made. I cut the housing off of this strip and hot-glued it inside the printed lid part. If you have the modeling prowess, you can modify the lid part (or make a new part to fit on top) that can hold whatever LED strip you have.
- 2x Mini Momentary Push button switches: LINK.
- Hot glue gun and hot glue
- Soldering iron and solder, also used for inserting heat-set threads
- A computer with the Arduino IDE installed to flash the code
- A shower glass block. Look at eBay or architectural recycling businesses like the Rebuilding Exchange!
How to make!
- Print the parts, make sure to enable supports for the case body and print with the “open” face up.
- Screw in the momentary push buttons.
- Using a soldering iron, place the heat-set threads into the holes on the case body and push them down until they sit flush with the top of the hole.
- Test the code on the board and the LEDs/buttons using a breadboard and some jumper cables.
- If using the LED strips I linked, cut off the casing, snip the strip into two 11-LED-long segments and hot-glue into the lid with the LEDs facing UP. Be cognizant of not hot-gluing the ends that you will be soldering. Solder wires between the two strips to connect power, ground and data.
- The not-so-pretty part of this is that I had to bend the pins of the ESP dev board so that it could lay mostly-flat inside the box. I used a pair of pliers for this. Then insert the board into the box, wedging it up under the wires of the push buttons.
- Solder stuff together! Pin connections are listed below.
Wiring:
- LED wires:
- Red/power connects to the 5v-out pin
- Black/ground to ground
- White/whatever color is in the middle of the strip, connects to pin 27
- Momentary push buttons:
- Left button red wire: pin 2
- Left button black wire: ground
- Right button red wire: pin 4
- Right button black wire: ground
Code: https://github.com/tmanga14/GlassBlockLampLEDCode
tom.newsome
