Infill Lampshades (3D Printed)

In this instructable I am going to explain how to design and print some really pretty light shades using 3D printing.

The light shades are easy to design, quick to print and use only a small amount of filament so are also cheap. The examples in the photograph each used approximately 80g of filament.

So lets get started.

Lamp base

Old lamp shade (not essential)

Tape measure

Computer or tablet

3D printer

Filament

If you have an old lampshade take measurements of the hole that fits onto the base and the height and width of the lampshade.

If you don’t have an old shade you can get the hole measurement by measuring the width of the fitting that holds the bulb and adding 2mm.

Now lets go into Tinkercad and design our lampshade.

Open Tinkercad on your tablet or PC and create a new design.

Choose the shape you would like your shade to be (I've chosen an octagon) and add it to your workspace.

Use the measurements of your old shade, or your lamp base, to resize the shape. As a guide my examples are both 160mm x160mm and 150mm tall.

Copy and paste the shape, reduce the x and y length by 10mm and change it into a ‘hole’.

Align the two shape and group them together, this is the shade, now lets add a fitting to the bottom.

First we need to make some prongs to attach to the shade so add a cube and make it 8mm wide and 3mm high. Now make the length slightly shorter than the width of your shade.

Copy this shape 3 times and rotate each one by 45 degrees.

Align the shapes and group.

Now create a cylinder with a diameter the same as the measurement you took (either the hole in the shade or the lamp fitting +2mm on the base). Make this cylinder into a hole

Create a second cylinder that is 10mm wider than the first.

Align the cylinders and the prongs (see pic) and group them together

Now align and group the fitting with the shade making sure to align to the bottom on the z axis.

Export your shade

This is our shade complete so lets slice it!

This is where the magic happens.

What we are going to do is slice the shade with no outer walls so that we can see the infill. The we can play with the infill settings to create the desired pattern or effect. Lets start by importing your shade into your slicer.

I used Prusaslicer to slice mine and will use this as the example, but will give you the Cura setting names in brackets.

Lets start by removing the outer walls. In printer settings, change the perimeters setting to zero (wall thickness = 0)

Now we are going to make the base and top of the lampshade print solid, just to make it a bit sturdier. Again in printers settings change the solid layers settings to Top =8 and Bottom = 10 (Top layers = 8, Bottom layers = 10).

Now slice your shade, you should see the infill in the print preview.

To choose the style of your shade we need to adjust two settings, first the infill type.

In printer settings choose the dropdown menu for fill pattern (infill pattern). Choose different patterns and reslice your shade to see how it will look. Don’t worry to much about the size of the pattern as we will adjust this next, just choose the pattern you like the look of best.

Now lets change the density of the pattern, in Cura and Prusaslicer this is shown as a percentage. On the main screen click on infill and choose a percentage between about 10 and 50% (infill density). Reslice your shade and keep changing your density until you like the look of your shade, don’t make it too thin other the print may fail.

Once you have decided it is time to print your shade so download your gcode and set your printer away.

**Before printing your shade consider the best material to print in. PLA filament is ok when you have a lamp with a low energy lightbulb which remains cool while on, but you may need to use a filament with a higher heat resistance for your set up.

Print your shade and carefully remove from the build plate.

Make sure your lamp is unplugged

Unscrew the locking ring on your lamp base and remove the bulb.

Slide your shade onto the base and replace the locking screw to hold it in place.

Insert the bulb, plug in the lamp and switch on your lamp.

Want to explore some more? See my option extra in the next step.

If you want to take your lampshade design a step further why not try changing the shape of the shade or adding shapes or patterns to the inside?

Here I have added circular cut outs to the inside of a square shade and sliced it at 10% gyroid infill. The pattern effect looks a bit like a knotted or crocheted design.

Have fun designing :)