light cube – 2011
Part of using a Makerbot is also about trying to find
new uses for it and experimented unexpected
things, even if this means unpredictable results
or problems during the process. This is a pretty
simple idea but the fun part is about doing a
printed light that is lighted straight out of the
3d printer while it’s still hot. For this I designed
first the 3d file made out of a simple cube that
is hollow inside, but not just hollow because the
shape has to be printable so the way I figure was
to extract a sphere shape from the cube.
Once the machine is printing I started preparing
a little LED connected to a coin cell battery just
wrap it together with some kapton tape and
drop it inside the cube while its about 3/4
printed ( you can pause the machine to do this
but I just didn’t) and then you just wait until the
print is finished and the cube is completely
closed. I did a white version first but the red
light just works better when the cube is still warm.
The light will run around 48 hours before it runs out.
live printing of a 3D cube with LED and battery inside
