Circadia - sunrise lamp / more details
This is a picture of the lamp from a year ago.
I thought I was nearly done.
Little did I know...
The lids, walls as well as the center column are made from MDF. These pictures also show the state of the pipe when I got it. It took quite a bit of sanding to remove all the marks.
I cut the holes out of the PVC pipe using a guide, made from heavy cardboard, and a Dremel armed with a milling bit. To make sure the cuts look nice and perpendicular to the curved wall, I even 3d printed an attachment for the Dremel that matched the curvature of the pipe.
The black cap in the picture (on the right) was 3d printed mostly for visual purposes and my theory was that it would distribute the sound better than the carpet the lamp is standing on.
The stand is actually a repurposed quadcopter frame (this one). I just trimmed it a bit shorter, and added a few angles to it.
Creating the acrylic diffuser screen was a little project of it's own. The plan was originally to build a mandrel or mold that could hold the sheet of acrylic on one end, while continuously applying heat along the length of the tube with a hot air gun. I'd then be able to roll up the sheet bit by bit, until it was fully rolled around the mold.
That did not work. The effect of my 2000W heat gun was too localized and the acrylic was cooling down too quickly as soon as I moved on to the next spot. I did manage to comfortably roll it around the tube, but it was not a tight fit. When the acrylic isn't hot enough, it remains slightly springy and tries to return to it's original shape. This part however, is designed to hold itself in place on the lamp by hugging the contour of the tube tightly, so I needed a close fit.
After some considerable head-scratching, I opted for the all-or-nothing approach. I stuck the entire sheet into my kitchen oven. It's quite a large sheet, 63x39cm, and I had to use the heat gun to fold it in half, so it would fit inside. When the right temperature was reached, it's a matter of getting the hot sheet onto the roll as fast as possible and holding it in place until it was cooled down enough to retain it's new shape. The sheet is very hot at this point, so an abundance of kitchen gloves and towels is a good way to avoid nasty burns.
For this whole thing to work the temperature of the oven is very important. On one hand, you want to get the acrylic sheet as hot as possible, in order to have enough time to fumble it out of the oven and get it onto the mold. On the other hand, if the acrylic gets too hot it will start forming bubbles, that will ruin the sheet. I used a few leftover bits of acrylic to dial in that sweet spot temperature just before bubbles appeared (every material will be slightly different) and then backed off by a good 20° C to account for potential hot spots in the oven.
This was all a bit nerve wrecking at the end but came out quite nicely.
The LED column is made completely from MDF and held together with M6 bolts. I figured the lamp would always be standing close to a wall or in a corner, so wrapping the LEDs completely around and illuminating 360 degrees, would be a waste. Three quarters, or 270 degrees would be a way better use of the lights. And it made the construction of the column way simpler.
A sheet of cardboard, bent into shape by a series of 3D printed ribs, provides support for the LED strips. This whole unit can be removed for easier access to the strips or potential repairs.
First tests of the light output looked promising.
This is necessary in order to keep the LEDs comfortably cool during operation.
To bad I had already painted the whole thing with primer when I realized that I had to add holes to the top and bottom walls, to increase the airflow through the tube.
A contraption laser cut from 3mm bamboo ply provides a place to mount all the different bits of electronics inside the lower tube, keeping the cabling mess to a minimum.
After connecting all the boards and tidying up the nest of wires with cable ties, the entire unit can be lifted out of the tube for maintainance.
This design turned out a bit short sighted. While it could be assembled by simply sliding the pieces in place, this only works if nothing is mounted to the levels.I ended up modifying the circular boards so they could slide out individually, perpendicular to the main board. This made everything way easier to assemble. (not represented in the pic on the left)
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