Lithophane photo lamp

thingiverse

This 3D-printed lithophane lamp with photos was created in six distinct pieces: a base, a top and four separate lithophanes. The photographs that make up these pieces were generated using http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/. My settings for the print included an outer curve, a maximum size of 100mm, a thickness of 2mm, a border of 3mm, a thinnest layer of 0.8mm and six vectors per pixel. To achieve a 1:1 resolution ratio, I had to crop my uploaded photos using Adobe Photoshop. The vector per pixel setting controls the quality of the lithophane, with higher numbers resulting in more detailed prints but also larger file sizes. I originally wanted to set this value to ten but encountered problems when trying to do so. Even with a vector per pixel setting of six, however, the file size was still around 100MB and the print quality was more than satisfactory. I designed the base and top of the lamp using Tinkercad by creating low-resolution lithophane models and then importing them into my software. From there I made holes in these parts to create the rings and circles needed for the finished product. Creating the base and top of the lamp is a straightforward process that anyone can follow with their own lithophane sizes, or they can simply use the settings I've provided and stick with what I designed. The bottom piece of the lamp features two holes at the bottom to accommodate screws for the light source. The base has three additional holes – one for the light cable and two for heat dissipation. I chose to print my lamp using PLA, which cannot be heated without melting, so I opted for a 5W LED light. While this works fine, a higher wattage option such as 10-15W might provide better results. A video showcasing how the lamp functions can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppewq5fU9M4&lc=z22nydepsse4xzi0iacdp4334kbllls30e3y3p25jsxw03c010c.