UPDATE LOG:
- 2018-12-25: Redesigned the back to maintain equal distance from the front panels. This also makes room for the power supply to fit behind the lamp base. Added ribs to guide the LED strip lights. Added bases to hold magnets at top of base and in the lid for optional magnetic closure.
A lithophane uses backlighting to shine through a sheet of plastic where thicker portions of the plastic appear darker and thinner portions of the plastic appear lighter. The resulting effect is a glowing, black-and-white (grayscale) photo that "pops-out" of the plastic. It's really beautiful!
Many lithophane lamps arranges 5 images in a cube that sits on a table and illuminates all sides simultaneously. My first lamp design did this [https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2780400]. This lamp instead uses 3 images arranged so that all images can be viewed from the "front" with a personalizable "nameplate" under each photo.
A few notes:
- This lamp accepts three 100 mm × 100 mm × 3 mm lithophane photos plus three 100 mm x 33.3 mm x 3 mm lithophane "nameplates." It is optimized for lithophanes that have a 3 mm bezel around the edge.
- This lamp has an empty cavity inside for you to construct your preferred method of lighting. You might use strip lights, a powerful LED bulb, etc. In the photo, I used 0.5M of 4014 Rigid LED Strip Light at 12V, however these generate too much heat and are melting the hot glue I used to affix it and softening my PLA+. I later swapped them out for more traditional LED strip lighting which works great!
- The .stl does have a hole near the bottom to accept your wiring. It also has a small angled bracket to which you can zip tie your wire as it enters the lamp for strain relief. In the photo you can see a small switch but I did not include a cut-out for it in the model (I physically cut out the hole after printing).
Needed supplies:
- LED strip lights (I purchased mine for about USD$4 from ebay, though this was with 30-day shipping from China).
- Power supply for LED strip lights (not all LED strips come with one; I had plenty of suitable ones lying around).
- A few small scraps of thin-gauge wire (I think I used 20 awg).
- Soldering iron and related supplies.
- Three 100 mm × 100 mm × 3 mm lithophanes (instructions on how to produce these are provided in the Post-Printing section).
- Three 100 mm × 33.3 mm × 3 mm lithophane nameplates (instructions on how to produce these are provided in the Post-Printing section).
- One small zip tie for strain relief of the power cable.
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I put a lot of effort into these designs. Even a small tip is greatly appreciated!
https://youtu.be/p_izTZU5pNs
jasonemock
