LED Candle Lantern

TLDR: LED candle lantern with arch and moon logo, and moon phases on two sides. Ideal for those who wish to personalise. Approximately 13" or 335 mm tall.

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Long version:
My son has recently provided me with another granddaughter, and asked me to create a lantern to commemorate the occasion. He got his preferred AI to draw up a design, and then sent me a picture of the result he liked. I've included the picture here for the curious.

The design was simple enough, but wasn't particularly 3D printer friendly. I could have played around with the design to make it so, but as a challenge to myself, I wanted the finished model to be as true a likeness of the AI picture that I could manage.

To make design this work, I broke the lantern roof down into printer-friendly pieces. This eliminated the need for almost all support, and avoided removal scars etc on the final product.

The last lantern I designed ( https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6367941 ) had the main “cage” body as a one-piece print, and I initially intended to do it the same way for this one. But then I remembered that the last design was beset with stringing, sagging, and so on. It wasn't something I wanted to repeat here, so I decided to break the whole lantern down in the same way as the roof. I ended up drawing a separate FreeCAD design just for the lantern cage and glazing.

My original plan was for the roof to lift off like my previous lantern. But I was halfway through the cage design when I changed my mind and decided to have a door at the back of the cage instead. Now I could get on with the printing.

After about 75% of the design had been printed, I made some test prints of the glazing panels. I quickly realised that the 2.2mm thick glazing panels I'd planned were too thick to look good when backlit. They looked almost white, and had a horrid crosshatch refraction pattern visble at all times. After some experimenting, I settled on a 0.72mm thickness instead. But this added a new problem: I'd already part-assembled the lantern, and it meant the thinner panels were much too loose for the printed slots. Rather than scrapping everything, I created some additional bezels to pack out the unwanted space inside. Not ideal, I know, but as a remedial solution it gets the job done!

The original design required text for the baby's name and birth details. This gave me an excuse to learn how to add text in FreeCad - easy enough as it turns out! I got good results, but I have taken the names etc out of the design files on here as (i) I didn't want to risk any identity theft and (ii) it gives opportunity for others to personalise the design for their needs. Many slicers will already allow you to add text to a model before slicing, and those who use FreeCad will be able to modify the attached FreeCad designs to suit their requirements.

I generally printed with a 0.16 layer height for most parts. But I ended decided to print the glazing in PLA (less “milky” than PETG IMO) and went with 0.24 to reduce internal light-bounce inside the panels when the candle is illuminated. The two threaded parts - the doughnut body and the nut - were printed at 0.08 layer height to ensure the threads would screw together without issues. I do recommend a smear of light lubricant on the threads first time to get them started though.

One thing I found particularly helpful was to use variable layer heights to obtain smoother printed curves on surfaces parallel to the print bed. But I couldn't avoid some print artifacts where curves rose directly from the bed. I'm sure there is a solution, but I haven't worked it out yet - I'm not that clever!

I glued almost everything together with CA glue, except for the two bases. The latter were joined with some tiny screws I had in my spares tin. The door assembly doesn't use any screws or glue at all. It just presses together tightly using friction. But be warned; if you attempt to split the door parts afterwards you WILL break off the little studs and need to reprint both pieces. I found this out the hard way!

The door hinge pins are replaceable dowels. I chose this method because I figured it would be easier to replace the dowels if little fingers get a bit heavy with the door. Time will tell if this was the right choice on my part.

On the subject of the door, I had some small 10x5x2 mm magnets to hand, so I arranged for one to be glued into a rear upright, and used two small laptop hard drive screws on the door body for the magnet to attract and keep the door closed. Note that you may need to shorten the screws with a file after you start them into the door. One of my screws was much longer than the other!

As well as the usual .stl files, I've also attached step files (much better reproduction of curved faces) and 3mf files to aid those with Bambu printers.

I think that's everything (but I may have missed something!). I know there's much simpler lanterns around to print, but I'm rather proud of this one, and feel that the results justifiy the extra effort.

Hopefully this model will light up your life and leave you glowing.

Happy printing!