
Geometric lamp-shade. Modeled in Autodesk Maya. I wrote a Python script to help me auto-constrain polygonal platonic-solids to a hemispherical NURBS surface to get the overall shape. The inside diameter of the top hole is about 3.5cm : This gives a nice friction-fit to the threaded light socket I picked up from Home Depot. This is the first time I've printed with support material. Probably contributed to the 26 hour print time on my Makerbot Replicator (non-accelerated). I had the printer plugged into my Kill A Watt: It used 1.63 kWh of juice to print. I plugged a 40watt halogen bulb into it, and left it on to make sure it wouldn't melt.... It did. I came back in a few minutes later with the bulb completely melted to the top interior of the print. I was able to get the bulb out... and there's no visible damage on the outside... but I'll have to sand down the hole to get a new bulb in there. In the future, I'll either use a LED bulb (far less heat), or do a re-design to make the interior space... larger :) Blog post here: http://www.akeric.com/blog/?p=1868Printed with 'natural' PLA so it would be semi-transparent. Set the HPB at 40deg (is that even needed with PLA?) and the extruder 210deg. 5% infill, 1 extra shell: Wanted to make it as transparent as possible. Used raft + support material to handle the interior\exterior overhangs.
