Dodecahedron Star bottle node light

A dodecahedron node with a threaded hole in each of its 12 faces to screw a fizzy drinks bottle into.

If you are a bottle thread enthusiast the standard is PCO 1881. If you are not, then all you need to know is that it will work with fizzy drinks bottles like Coke, Pepsi, Sprite etc, but it will not work with still drinks like Evian. If the thread is of the right diameter and is split into sections rather than a continuous spiral then it should work.

My photos show it with 500ml bottles, but the size of the node is such that you should be able to screw in bottles up to 2L size if you are prepared to imbibe 24L of fizzy drinks to complete this project - see CAD screengrab.

 You could leave it at that and just kick it about till it breaks, using it as a weird ball. You could even fill the four cable access holes with hot-melt glue and chuck it in your swimming pool.

But I think it is probably best used as a freestanding floor light. This is simply achieved by threading LED fairylights through it as you screw in the bottles. If you get outdoor-rated lights like my set are, then it would work in or outdoors. As each 500ml bottle is roughly 9" or 23cm tall and you need to loop out and back inside each bottle you need a minimum of 23 x 2 x 12 = ~ 6m of fairylights. My set was 8.4m long in total, with 2.5m of that just being cable to the first bulb, so just long enough. If you are going 2L then you will need a much longer set to fill not just the bottle length but to fill out the volume a bit. You might even try using two sets of lights.

If possible buy a set of lights with a clear rather than green cable. I have included a couple of photos showing the dimensions of one bulb in my set - about 4mm diameter x 28mm long - as a reference for what is known to fit. The set came from Wilko, which is a shop in the UK, but there must be many others like it that will work fine. My lights do not get hot. Do not use any that do.

You need to measure the distance between the first and last bulbs in your set and divide it by 12 to get the length of the loop that is inserted into each bottle. Then count the number of bulbs in that length, so that you know how many to pull through each hole as you are forming loops to insert into the bottles.

Check that your lights are working before threading them.

You begin by inserting the end bulb (i.e. the one furthest from the plug) through one of the small entrance holes (NOT a bottle thread hole) that ring one of the 12 faces. There are two rectangular entrance holes measuring 7x13mm and two round holes of 7mm diameter. It does not matter which you use; there are four just to give you a choice of where the cable enters the node. 

Then you pass the chain of bulbs back out of a bottle hole, form a loop of the right number of bulbs, pass the chain back through the hole that it exited and out of the next hole. Insert the loop you formed into the mouth of a bottle and screw it on. Repeat 11 more times till you have used up the whole length of bulbs and fitted all 12 bottles. Good job - plug in and enjoy.

The build that I photographed is in orange PETG printed at 0.3mm draft setting with a 0.4mm nozzle. The bottles all screwed in fine though a little tight. No supports are required. I have uploaded gcode for PETG at 0.2mm which should give a smoother fit. I have also uploaded the project file if you want to slice your own way. Clear or at least transparent tinted PETG would be a good choice of material as there are some lights inside the node that are wasted in opaque material.