Improved LED Lamp design for 3D printing

Thanks to Daniel González Abalde for providing guidance on how to create evenly spaced points on a curved 3D surface. This design is much better than my original one that had cutouts based on random points.

Print time for this part is about 10 hours; I'll post a link to for the STL file sometime tomorrow.

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Comment by Michael Dubby on July 30, 2025 at 11:44pm: LED screens are transforming public engagement, offering striking visuals in both indoor and outdoor settings. Businesses increasingly turn to large-format solutions like tv screens for advertising in London to boost street-level attention. These screens bring campaigns to life with motion, brightness, and clarity that outshines static signage. Whether mounted on storefronts or integrated into transport hubs, LED displays create a dynamic platform for branding. Their durability and customizable features make them a solid option for brands seeking consistent public presence in crowded, competitive urban landscapes.

Comment by Ghadeer Fikry on July 29, 2016 at 4:12pm: Thanx for ur rapid respond

Comment by Birk Binnard on July 29, 2016 at 8:30am: Yes, it would be easy to use any shape for the cutouts. The way the GH layout works is exactly how you'd expect - first I generate the underlying surface of rotation, then populate the outside surface with points, place the cutouts on the points, and finally do a SDiff operation to make the cutouts.

The biggest problem is the SDiff operation. For the above part it took about 30 minutes to run on my 3 GHz system. There is a whole other discussion here about how GH uses CPU resources; the bottom line is everything GH does is single threaded, so high-powered CPU (like my i7) doesn't help speed things up.

I'm not sure how you would generate 3D versions of calligraphic objects in GH, but perhaps you have a way to do this. All you need is the 2D outline of course.

I printed the part (several versions of it actually) using PLA. That's a standard material for 3D printing and the results came out pretty well. The part is a difficult one to print because of the way 3D printers work - the need to stop and start each extruded loop of plastic makes the edges of the cutouts less sharp than ideal. Injection molding would produce much better results, but regular people don't have access to that technology.

I see that I forgot to post links to the STL file for printing this part. Here they are:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1626234

https://pinshape.com/items/22581-3d-printed-pockedlamp3

Comment by Ghadeer Fikry on July 29, 2016 at 4:05am: Looks amazing what was the material used & do u think i can replace the stars w calligraphy text