You've likely seen these Lithophane products while browsing for personalized gift ideas on Pinterest. If not, check out my Pinterest collection. You're sure to fall in love with them too. đź’™
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Here's a fun rundown of how I bring my product ideas to life, from brainstorming and tweaking designs to building the final product from the ground up 🚀
All I had at first was a desire to develop it personalized for me. So, I set off on an adventure, tackling each challenge one by one! Luckily I came across few research papers that simplified the slicing parameters for me but I was still unsure of desk-ware design and the 3D design software. I've settled on three design ideas as our top contenders -
I also found an online design software that convert images into 3D CAD model and generates .stl file as an input for Rapid Prototyping processes. Naturally, it was necessary to evaluate multiple parameters using the software, optimize and then finalize on the final product specifications.
In my first iteration-cum-experimentation, I took an image with relatively lower resolution and 3D printed with blue filament to test quality of image obtained and “lithophane effect” it catered with white light. Another Iteration with grey filament body and white or yellow lights also resulted in poor penetration of light and overall dimmer night lamp. I concluded that white filament PLA works best and is the most versatile among other options. I personally favored golden lights because they boost the aesthetic appeal and add a touch of elegance ✨
Key Points I am going with ➡️
For the prototype phase, I preferred relatively cheaper 3D Printer (Creality Ender 3) which resulted in more surface roughness. The lights chosen were battery operated string lights with On/Off switch embedded inside the frame. The image chosen was first grey-scaled and consequently tessellated for a thickness of 0.8 to 3.2 mm in order to depict 3 D effect.
I 3D printed supporting structures too, and assembled to form a minimum viable product (MVP).
The two support structures were modelled in Solidworks and printed with identical printing parameters.