MDF Laser Cut Lamp (4 Sided)

I'm currently in my second year of my Industrial Design program at Rochester Institute of Technology and this was a project for my Integrated CAD class. I'm very new to 3d digital modeling and I created this lamp with the intention of creating a warmer feel to my apartment space and in order to bring elements of the natural world inside, as I often get caught up doing work inside. The file I created in Fusion 360 is designed to be seamlessly exported for laser cutting, and is designed to have 4 interlocking sides for an easy assembly. Coffee stained paper glued on the interior of my lamp diffuses a warm and calming light outwards.

-1/8" thick sheet of MDF

-Wood Glue (for fastening lamp faces together)

-Printer paper (to diffuse light)

-Coffee (For Staining Paper) (Allows for warmer light to be diffused)

-Super Glue (to fasten stained paper to back of MDF

-Light fixture (to be placed within lamp)

Before bringing fusion into play, I began by sketching a variety of forms that I thought would be desireable as lamp faces. This always helps me a lot with visualizing the parts I want to create in fusion and allows me to observe a variety of ideas before fully delving into a sketch with dimensions.

Once I had a good idea of the overall structure and shape of my lamp, I set parameters for material width (Mat), lamp face width (Width) which I inputted as 4", and lamp face length (Length) which I inputted as 6". For my lamp, I defined material width as 1/16" since I knew I would be laser cutting MDF of this thickness. By setting these parameters, If I for some reason needed to alter my lamps material thickness, I would be able to easily change my parameter values and if they were inputted in as sketch or extrusion dimensions, these dimensions would update accordingly.

1- After creating a new component, I started my sketch by creating a simple rectangle dimensioned using my parameters for (Length) and (Width). I left cutouts with a width of (Mat) for the material thickness of my other lamp sides to plan for interlocking.

2- Next, I extruded my defined sketch face back by the the parameter (Mat) to create my first side.

3- I created a second new component to represent the second lamp side. Then, based on my former extrusion, I created a sketch on the thin (Mat) side of my first lamp face. I projected the areas I left as gaps for cutouts from the first side. I used this projection along with the same parameter dimensions for length and width, this time, locking onto the projected geometry cutouts to create a lamp face with reversed cutouts and interlocking pieces from the first component.

4) I extruded the second sketch face backwards by (Mat), allowing the first two lamp faces to seamlessly interlock at a 90 degree angle.

5) I created two new components and repeated this process two more times two finish the solid body of my lamp.

1(Vine with Leaves) - For my first lamp face, I began by creating a sketch on the outward facing face of the first side I extruded. (For my project, I only needed to fully constrain two of my sides, so I played a bit with the spline tool and organic shapes). I wanted to first mimic a window pane by creating four rectangles for light to pass through. I dimensioned each of these rectangles to be equally scaled and each 1/2" away from the projected borders. I then created a rough sketch over top of the first one using the line tool and indicating the general direction I wanted my vines to follow. I then used the spline tool, creating what seemed like thousands of little points around each of the geometric lines I started with. I pulled each of these little points to their intended location to insure that my form represented leaves and vines, and was consistent across the whole sketch. (This was definitely the most tedious part and I wouldn't recommend trying this strategy, but the end result was nonetheless very satisfying) Once I arranged the desired forms, I extruded the empty space between the spline vines by my (Mat) parameter to truly make this first face appear like a window pane with glowing light shining through.

2 (Rectangle pattern)- For my second face, I wanted something that would be less intense and more geometric to balance with my first face. I entered my second component and created a sketch on the outer face as I had done with the first face. For this face, I first projected the lamp face and created an outer rectangle 1/2" away from each outer border. I then used the construction line feature to create a center grid using snapped center points from each outer wall. I then sketched many center point rectangles, each dimensioned to be 1/8" smaller than the last. At this point I realized I needed to create some point of contact between each layer so that I could properly laser cut this second side, so I sketched out small rectangular tabs between each layer, beginning on the top half of my lamp face. I then mirrored this geometry over the horizontal midline from before to save time. To finish this side, I extrude cut the desired blank spaces by my (Mat) parameter so that my support tabs could be useful in making this cutout one single piece rather than just floating rectangles.

3 (Clouds)- For my third side now directly across from my first window pane side, I sought it fit to repeat this pattern. I began by creating a sketch on the outside of my third face within my third component. I then projected geometry, selecting my window pane rectangles from the first side. I then played around with the spline tool, being careful that my cloud shapes overlapped with either the window pane or outer border, as I knew I wanted the space behind the clouds to be where the light would shine through. I then extrude cut each window space by (Mat) parameter, excluding the clouds.

4 (Geometric eye)- Now for my final lamp face. I began by creating a sketch on the remaining blank face within my fourth component. I projected geometry from the face opposite to carry over the dimensions for my outer solid border of 1/2". I then created construction lines based on the snap center points of the projected rectangles in order to create a center grid. Where my center grid intersected, I first sketched a two small circles for the eyes pupil. Then, I used my horizontal center construction line to snap a 3 point arc to my outermost border as I knew the eyes arc would be slightly overlapping each side. I mirrored this arc over my horizontal center line, and created an offset arc 1/2" away from each of the resulting arcs to make up the eye. I next created two larger circles based on the center grid, this time much larger than before to represent the iris of an eye. For the details of the iris, I created tons of lines from the center point to the second largest circle, carefully being sure to fill only one quadrant of the iris. Each of these lines was 7 degrees apart. I mirrored these lines first across my vertical center line, then I mirrored all of the resulting lines over the horizontal center line to fully complete my iris. I lastly created a simple line pattern from the top of my border to the bottom. I extrude cut = each desired section of the eye and line pattern back again using the (Mat) Parameter.

Now that I had created my desired forms, I used the arrange command and selected all four of my components to lay out each of these lamp faces on a flat surface. I exported an STL file of this in order to create a final laser cut file based on only the two dimensional line work of each face. I was careful to dimension the arrange to 18"x24" as my laser cut file needed to be within this size constraint to remain within the size of the MDF sheet I intended to use.

To create coffee stained paper, soaked printer paper in freshly brewed coffee for 15 minutes, and then placed the stained paper in the oven directly on the metal rack at 300 degrees. Carefully, monitoring the sheets, i took them out within 5 minutes and cut them to my lamp dimensions.

For this step, I glued the coffee stained paper to the back of each lamp face using super glue.

I Didn't have any good pictures for this step. But in order to properly glue each side, I used a small amount of Wood Glue between the interlocking edges of each corresponding face. Once aligned, I left the pieces against a 90degree angled wall to insure proper bonding, repeating the process for each side.