LED Shade Lamp

So this week we’re moving from making an item my subtraction on the laser printer and moving to additive creation with the 3D printer. I’ll also be starting off with a simple design process of making a flat object and then using the revolve tool to make it a fully 3D object in one swoop. My first step is to make a sketch on the vertical plane and giving the item a two line, 90 degree vertical height of 100 mm and a 50 mm width base. Easy enough.

Then I used a new tool called a “spline” which is similar to the pen tool in Photoshop. It lets me make curved lines with modification points along the way. I though my lamp would have the design of a classic board game piece like in the game Sorry by Mattel. As you can see, my initial drawing wasn’t that close.

But since I can tweak the points and curves after the fact I was able to get something a little bit closer.

Now to make the whole thing filled in with a 360 degree swoop we use the really nice Revolve tool. It makes this flat shape fully 3D like this.

Nice. Now we have to hallow the thing out. This is usually done by simply selecting the bottom plane and then using the Shell tool. Unfortunately my game piece lamp has a small base and wouldn’t select just a flat surface.

So i decided to select it manually and then extrude up the thickness of the shell (1.6 mm). Then I could select the indented plane and cut the shell.

 

Now we have a hallow lamp ready to print!