Dodecahedron Lamp

Really nice! You could also use the tabbing feature in CC to cut those panels all the way through, leaving tabs for support, which would allow light to shine through the panels as well.

Thanks! My original hope had been to have the material thin enough to look solid but let a tiny amount of light bleed through. No dice. The tabs are an interesting idea though. I might try that on the next one.

I approve of the taste in music as well :slight_smile:

Outlandos D’amour in particular

Might be hard to get mahogany thin enough to let light through, as it is pretty dense (~40lb/cuft). Might work better with a less dense wood, like pine (~25lb/cuft). Pine doesn’t even have to be that thin to let light through… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgsDWb0orSQ

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Hi John,

Any chance you would be willing to share the design file for this ? I would love to roll my own version (with mods to let the light through the pentagons, as was already suggested)

Sure Julien. This is the Carbide Create file with two sides and two connectors. You need a total of 12 sides and 30 connectors. You will need to make adjustments for the stock thickness. Mine was 5mm, so you have to adjust your tabs and slots sizes accordingly.

Dodecahedron2Carve.c2d (1.3 MB)

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Great, thanks ! I’ll try this soon.

Cool. I would love to see what you come up with.

At the hardware store I stumbled upon decorative perforated aluminum sheet, and gave it a try on a sample MDF piece:

It was also the opportunity to cut my very first aluminum parts with the Shapeoko, which went smoothly.
I think I’ll do a full MDF prototype version of the lamp this way, see how it looks, and go from there. I already spotted much nicer perforated sheets with interesting patterns.

Thanks again for the idea and the file!

Cheers

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Very cool! That will throw some nifty patterns on the walls.

Hi,

So in the end the perforated aluminum approach did not look as good as I thought it would, so I came back to a full MDF prototype, played around based on the base design you provided, and got this:

I like it enough to proceed with doing one in a nice wood now. Thanks again for sharing the idea and the CarbideCreate file!

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Rice paper attached to the inside of each piece could help diffuse the light, if that were desired.

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Very nice! I like what you did with the base and the invisible connectors. Those work well with the pierced panels. I wonder if you could cut the panels out with a v-bit and make the outer edges meet.

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Very good idea ! I’ll try this, thx

Interesting idea, however the angle between faces is very specific for a dodecahedron so not easy to do with a 60/90 degree Vbit.

You could fake it maybe? Cut at a steeper angle, then still use the little tab pieces to hold it all together? Glue the joints from the inside (as much as possible), use plain wood glue mixed with fine saw dust as a filler (trick I learned from my 6th grade wood shop teacher (You are dearly missed Sir!)).

Dan

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And there goes my week-end. All very good suggestions, so I definitely have to do a v2 based on these now :slight_smile:

Indeed, much better with paper added on the inside faces:

I used calque tracing paper since this is what I had on hand.

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What angle are the tabs set too

116.56°, see:

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