I’ve been wanting to make a lighthouse nightlight for some time now. Thanks to the motivation of Carbide 3D and @Julien, I’ve finally managed it!
I bought a couple of variations of inexpensive nightlights from the big box home improvement stores. In this case $2:
Yep, it’s full of Voltaic Voodoo in there. However, this saved me from gathering parts I don’t understand from several different sources.
I designed and generated all of the toolpaths with Vectric Aspire. Just haven’t gotten a handle on Carbide Create Pro or Fusion 360, yet. All of the cutting was done with Carbide Motion This is my artwork, so all are welcome to use as they see fit.
LighthouseNight Light.dxf (100.1 KB)
I did modify it somewhat into the DXF image for this project hoping to get the windows to work out with a 1/8" end mill, which I’m pleased with.
Here’s the block of wood (eucalyptus) ready for the first 3D roughing cut:
And after the 3D rough Cut using a 1/4" Carbide 3 flute end mill, 0.010 DOC, 40 IPM feed, 30 IPM plunge, and 12,000 router:
And the light cutouts using a 1/8" end mill. 0.030 DOC, 15 IPM feed 30 IPM plunge and 12,000 RPM router speed:
Ready for the epoxy fill. Had to build cofferdams on each side of the top windows to contain the epoxy. I DO NOT recommend pouring epoxy while on the spoil board, but I had finish cuts to make before flipping to machining the back side. If you do the same make sure you cover everything and block any paths the epoxy might follow.
I filled these with epoxy with a very little bit of metallic blue art paint:
Here’s the first finish pass using a Carbide 3D 1/4" ball nose, 45 IPM feed, 30 IPM plunge, 10,000 router speed. I slowed it down some to prevent melting the epoxy. Aspire sets the depth of cut automatically, about .008 as it turns out.
And after the second pass with the cutting direction 90 degrees to the first finish cut. This ended up being a very nice texture that I did not sand out.
I did make a profile cut on each side to make sure that the router collar wouldn’t hit the edges.
Forgot to take a picture of the flip jig holes which in this case were four 0.26 1" deep holes using a 1/8" end mill. I have aluminum bar that is 0.257 that have been cut to 7/8" and this fits in very tightly. Aspire has a nice feature, as I’m sure CC Pro and Fusion have, to copy these holes, flip to the backside in the project and paste them. Created a toolpath and cut matching holes into the spoilboard, flipped the stock and fastened it down and made the center cutouts and the initial profile cut to verify that the alignment was good with side one. Very pleased with the resulting thickness of the leftover stock after these cuts. I’m sure most of you will notice the profile cut that looks like it came all the way through from the side one. I forgot to check the bit tightness and it started going through the spoilboard. Hit stop in time that no harm was done, but make and follow your checklist, D’OH!:
Here’s a look after the final cutout. Couldn’t help myself and put a flashlight behind to see how it might look, WOO-HOO!:
Here’s the modified nightlight guts and the back of the lighthouse. I applied metallic foil tape to the back and inside to reflect as much light as possible. The green wire are for the photocell which I drilled a hole for in the bottom:
Here’s the final fitting before drilling screw holes to fasten the back on:
And here is the old and new nightlights together:
A couple of additional glamor shots now that it’s dark:
Looks crooked in that shot, but it’s not really.
And a close up:
Here’s the zipped Aspire file:
Per
@Julien suggestion, here’s a link to the file on Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MndJzRawiVrGNjp627dcwx01up1haY1a/view?usp=sharing
And the Cutrocket link:
https://cutrocket.com/p/5f71213802a11/
There are so many fantastic projects here this go around, thanks for organizing these contests
@Julien and Carbide 3D for supporting them, what a great time!
EDIT:
I was able to save the lighthouse as an STL file, hopefully this will be helpful to those with CAD programs other than Aspire.
Lighthouse Nightlight.stl (2.1 MB)