Dymaxion globe lamp

Details

This is a project that I worked on for a class to demonstrate knowledge in 3D printing, laser cutting, and the use of power tools. We used 1/8" birch plywood and 1/8" clear acrylic to laser cut the globe and base, 3D printed icosahedron joints, and fastened the triangle panels together with socket head screws.

The idea was based off Gavin Smith's Dymaxion Globe, with some help from Kim Stroman's revised map, and lastly Mike's version with the stand. The stand in this version is modified to house electronics and sensors to control LED light strips which are wired through the bottom of the globe. Right now either motion in front of the sensor or a loud clap will trigger the LEDs to turn on like a latching switch.

Each side of the triangle panel measures 3", making the total height of the globe just under 6". The entire assembly comes out to be about 4.75" x 8".

Files

Fuller_dymaxion_3in.pdf

Dymaxion map can be edited in Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Portable Document Format - 718.07 kB - 10/08/2018 at 06:17

Preview

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icosahedron_insert_halfinch.STL

Standard Tesselated Geometry - 46.57 kB - 10/08/2018 at 06:15

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icosahedron_insert_halfinch.SLDPRT

SolidWorks part

sldprt - 134.19 kB - 10/08/2018 at 06:15

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Components

1 × 1/8" x 12" x 12" acrylic

2 × 1/8" x 12" x 12" birch plywood

1 × Arduino UNO any microcontroller will do

1 × Breadboard Electronic Components / Misc. Electronic Components

1 × Electret microphone

Project Logs

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LED circuit in action!

Katrina Nguyen • 10/10/2018 at 01:30 • 0 comments

Proximity and sound sensor integrated! The neopixel LED strips are programmed to cycle through different hues of blue while switched on. See video here.

Build Instructions

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1

Laser cut triangle and base panels

I cut these with epilog laser cutters (mini/EXT models). The distance from the triangle tip to the center of the hole cutouts is 0.50". Note that if you change this, make sure to modify the 3D printed vertices so that the holes line up for the screws! The map files here have the continents etched in; to remove the etch, simply get rid of the grey infill in the file. CorelDraw (.cdr) and PDF files are located in the files area.
2

Glue base panels

Assemble the base panels using wood glue to hold everything together. I arranged mine so that the cutouts for the sensors and arduino ports are opposite of each other.

Glue the rest of the pieces for the stand onto the top of the lid for the base. Don't glue the lid to the rest of the base so you can remove/modify the electronics!
3

3D print icosahedron inserts

These are fairly simple pieces and printed on the Ultimaker 3 Extended with PLA no problem. The holes here, like the triangles, were sized to fit 4-40 screws. Again, make sure that the hole location on these pieces and the laser cut triangles match up! A total of 12 inserts need to be printed for the globe assembly.

I forgot to account for the hole at the bottom of the globe to wire the LEDs through, so I ended up manually drilling a hole through the center of one of the inserts. If you don't want to add any lights etc. in the globe, no need to worry about this.