Glowing Flowers

thingiverse

I'm super excited to be sharing my latest project with you, which involves making glowing things! Right now, it's a work in progress, and it might take a bit longer before it's finished. But I wanted to show off the part that is already done, just to give you an idea of what it looks like when completed. You can customize these glowy flowers however you want or decide not to light them up at all! The stems are hollow inside, making it relatively easy to pass a wire through. Keep in mind that they're slightly too small for larger LEDs right now, so make sure the LED is tucked away safely before gluing everything together. This helps prevent any potential accidents where an LED might fall out. I'm using Blender as my software, and I've only started experimenting with it, which is why you won't see any advanced snapping mechanics to make assembly easier. If your print is in PLA material, you can use super glue to attach parts. For ABS prints, there are a few workarounds – but I still need to try using super glue. By the way, this little setup with all these flowers sitting in that cool-looking vase was inspired by my project on thingiverse called Voronoi Bottle Holder. There's plenty of room for future improvement; for example, I'm planning on designing a vase with some space to hide the board and batteries underneath, so you don't see them sticking out awkwardly. It's possible I'll start selling kits for those who have no access to 3D printers or offer completed projects to individuals without knowledge in electronics. However, feel free to use these meshes as you like! Printing instructions: No supports are needed when printing. For best results with a clear plastic print, just light it up as usual! One specific part, the stem, has a higher chance of collapse because it can sometimes become an enormous chimney shape. If this is the case, try cooling each layer before moving on to another, like you would with printing two parts together. In this model, I'm using basic RGB LEDs and running my custom-built Attiny85 board at 5V for the electricity. So far, it shines pretty bright when placed inside a clear part to illuminate all the petals! You can definitely achieve good brightness at 3.3V as well; I intend to verify this in future tests. By the way, just for the record – that flower in your view isn't really a buttercup! Although its petals remind me of those little flowers that are yellow with 5 petals, I only ended up drawing four because it looked cooler without the fifth one. There might be another flower that is actually closer to what this project aims to replicate; for now though, I've got no memory left from trying different options when brainstorming earlier!