Melted PLA Scrap Lamp

youmagine

Heat oven up to about 200 degrees Celsius. Put some PLA scraps on your metal plate (I prefer using a metal plate instead of the baking tray because it is flat and not coated with anything like Teflon or similar). I got mine from a local metal shop, just measure the size of your baking tray and give them the correct dimensions. Mine is 4mm aluminum and cost me 5 Euros. Don't use too much PLA; it's easy to add more later. Now put everything in the oven. I wanted my PLA to be nice and flat, so I let it bake in the oven for 30 minutes. You will get some air bubbles depending on the shape of your scraps and the amount of infill. I didn't want any bubbles in my lamp, so you could wait for hours until all the bubble pops and the PLA melts together. But with a small blowtorch, it's much easier to pop the bubbles. Just heat up the surface gently, and all the bubbles will pop instantly. Don't overdo it; you'll burn the plastic. Better take several passes. Another 10 minutes in the oven so that all the holes melt together. If you still have bubbles, you can repeat this process as often as you want. Let everything cool down. Remove the plastic from the metal plate. If your plastic is stuck really well, try putting it in the freezer for several minutes. The plastic will shrink a bit, and you can start peeling off the corners. Some thin liquid like IPA works also really well. Just take your time and be careful. Thin PLA is quite brittle (I learned this the hard way by dropping it on a concrete floor and breaking some pieces). Build a shallow wooden box (or print one) a bit smaller than your PLA piece. I painted mine white to match my wallpaper. Cut the LED stripe in fitting pieces and add as many as you like. More LEDs equal more light. Solder all LEDs together and try them out. Now hold your piece roughly 1 cm over your wooden box and give it a try. Too much or too little light? Adjust the height of your PLA panel. I found 1 cm to be about right for mine. I put one nail in each corner of my light box (screws or something similar would also work well) so that the nail head was 1 cm above the box. I added some glue to the nail heads and glued my PLA piece in place. Put something in the back to hang or stand up your lamp, and enjoy!