Nativity Lithophane

thingiverse

My wife collects nativity scenes, and I wanted to create something truly special for her this Christmas. So, I started thinking about making a lithophane. After searching the internet for some inspiration, I stumbled upon an amazing picture from the movie "The Nativity Story" that caught my eye. The image showed real people portraying the holy family in a beautiful scene - Mary and Jesus bathed in light, with Joseph leaning in, full of wonder and awe. I used 3DP.rocks to convert the picture into a lithophane, setting the maximum size to 100 mm, thickness to 3mm, border to 2mm, and positive image. I also made sure to set the infill to 100% - a crucial step that would make all the difference in the final result. As I wanted to showcase this incredible image, I decided to design a unique container to display it. The box features a curved surface on the back, which helps reflect the light and creates an impressive overhang effect. While not perfect in printing, I was thrilled with the outcome, and it proved that my printer can handle 100mm unsupported bridges. To light up the box, I used a section of a 12 Volt string of RGB LEDs that I had lying around. Cutting off three LEDs created just the right amount of illumination for the scene. I repurposed an old Netgear router's power adapter and plug to power the LEDs, adding a 'buck-boost' type circuit between the 12 volts in and the RGB LEDs to adjust the brightness. Setting it to 9.5 Volts seemed to be just right, providing great light without overheating. However, I made a mistake that would become a recurring theme throughout this project - I wanted my wife to be able to use this all year round, so I created a lithophane family portrait to match the nativity scene. But, unfortunately, the family picture was slightly smaller than the original image. To solve this problem, I designed another top piece to fill in the gap instead of remaking the entire family portrait. This project was not for the faint of heart - the slicer estimated it would take almost 9 hours to print the box, and after 12 hours and 30 minutes, it finally finished printing. Adding another 4 hours to print the picture made this the longest print I've ever undertaken.