September 23, 2020
Description
On July 20th, 1969, the world felt just a little bit larger as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot upon the lunar surface – the first humans to ever do so (only after leaving their friend Michael Collins alone in orbit about the moon). Teams of similarly audacious and bold humans would repeat this five more times, each mission becoming more ambitious and adventurous.
I wanted to design something fun to commemorate lunar space exploration, and I landed upon this lamp. In setting out on this design, I wanted to:
This is a modular lamp modeled not simply to be reminiscent of the lunar surface, but its texture is derived directly from real lunar data produced by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (see https://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources.html) and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (see https://lola.gsfc.nasa.gov). In particular, the texture corresponds directly to the Apollo 11 landing site, and a small hole serves as a subtle nod to the very place that those astronauts touched down more than 50 years ago.
This lamp designed to work with the ever-popular IKEA HEMMA light socket and is modular in that it can be either (a) hung from the ceiling or (b) mounted like a table lamp using the included stand.
All of the lamp components are my own, but for a much less subtle nod to the Apollo 11 landing site (and for a little bit of fun), I have included some (very popular) models that can be placed on the lamp as astronauts. Here I have included
My modification to these models are very minor, so credit for our "Astronauts" goes to the original creators. These are the only parts that require assembly, but it's very minor (and optional). I really just wanted to show off how tiny the Prusa MINI can print (and despite the MINISCULE first layer surface areas, each printed on the textured build plate without a brim!).
I printed this on my Prusa MINI in Prusament Clear and Galaxy Black PETG. Minimally, all that's needed to print is modular_lunar_lamp-shade.3mf and, if you'd like to use it as a table lamp rather than a hanging lantern, either modular_lunar_lamp-base_clip.3mf or modular_lunar_lamp-base_flat.3mf. If what you want is a hanging lantern, all you have to do is pair the shade with an IKEA HEMMA and you're done.
Note that all of the lamp components are designed to be printed at default 0.2mm QUALITY settings in PETG on the Prusa MINI. The Astronauts are all intended to be printed at 0.10mm DETAIL settings. If you use a non-transparent (i.e. opaque) filament for the shade, you may want to consider being careful about infill percentage and settings to ensure the final result looks good without too much infill pattern showing through.
By design, there is basically no need for instruction for this. The HEMMA just sticks through and you screw the included thread on to hold the socket to the lamp. The radius of the ribs on the inside of the shade should closely align with the curvature of the threaded component of the HEMMA.
If you'd like to use the base, print the shade and one of the two bases. The HEMMA cable will fit right through the hole in the base and in the channel on the bottom of the stand. One of the bases is designed to "clip" into the shade, but printers that aren't quite dialed in may have some trouble with tolerances or breaking the clips (if you aren't somewhat gentle). I have also included clip-less variant ("flat") for this reason. All those clips really do is index them against the ribs of the shade, so it's not a big deal, but it wouldn't hurt to be a bit gentle when clipping it on to the ribs.
Note that the .3mf file (and the included .gcode) for the shade includes two PrusaSlicer filament changes to have contrasting colors for the included "beauty rings" on the top and bottom of the shade. If you don't want this, just remove the layer changes when slicing.
If you use the included PrusaSlicer modifiers in the .3mf files for the bases, you'll note that the tabs are enforced to 100% infill for strength. I have included some small test print for the bases to (a) make sure the socket of your light fixture fits through the shaft of the lamp base and (b) to ensure that your settings are sufficient to place the shade on the base without damaging the clips. If you find that your printer is unable to print the clipped base without breaking them, just print the "flat" version. No biggie.
The only thing perhaps requiring instruction is how to build our astronauts, and so I've included an image to that effect. Basically you can just take a small length of 1.75mm filament, place a small amount of narrow heat shrink over it, and hit it with your heat gun until they bond. Then, cut the filament and stick the cut end into your astronaut. Then, shove the heat-shrinked end into the hole on the lamp shade so your astronaut and hang out on the lunar surface right there at the Apollo 11 landing site!
Take care to only use LED bulbs on most (and this) 3D printed housings. Other bulbs get hot and can deform the print, possibly causing fires and whatnot. Be safe.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial
Cloudyhead
