Week 3: 3D Printed Lampshade (MAT238)

This is a 3D-printed lampshade modeled with Grasshopper

• Rhino
• Cura
• 3D printer
• White PLA

Initially for this project, I wanted to create a lava lamp-inspired lampshade using metaballs to create the lava lamp look. I ran into issues forming the mesh between the loft and the metaballs which prevented me from generating the gcode for this design. I might try to get this design working in the future, but due to the fast-paced nature of this project, I pivoted to a simpler design.

For this design, I made a star generator in Grasshopper which allowed me to define the number of points. I then made copies of the base star, translated them vertically, and rotated them. This set of stars was input into the loft node to create the overall shape. This design was baked and saved as an STL for slicing.

The STL was imported into Cura, and the slicing settings were set to vase mode. In my design, I included a hole in the bottom to fit the light fixture through, however, when I sliced it, Cura would fill in the hole. I couldn't figure out why this was happening, but because I was only making one, I decided to cut the hole manually after printing it.

Once the lampshade was printed, I found the center of the bottom and cut out a 35mm hole with an X-ACTO blade. This wasn't the cleaned cut, so I tried smoothing it out with the soldering iron. This cut will not be visible when the lampshade is mounted.

The lampshade is sandwiched between the nut and the light fixture, and then the bulb is reinstalled.