"Waveguide" Bedside Reading Lamp cnc by ZenziWerken

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

I got some 10 mm acrylic glass (PMMA, a.k.a. plexi glass) from a donor. This material is not super easy to work with on a small cnc, as the chips tend to melt and clog the end mill resulting in breaking the bit. A solution is to reduce the spindle speed, ramp up the feed and make fast shallow passes. Some drops of water mixed with methylated spirits or washing-up liquid help to cool the cutter. However it increases the mess. Especially if you use some compressed air to clean out the cutting channel. The sides but in particular the edges where the light enters and exits should be sanded smooth and polished clear.
The design is based on two principles giving the lamp it's unusual look:
first the waveguide based on total reflection of light inside a material
the possibility to bend acrylic glass if it's heated to a certain degree
In order to get a defined curvature I made a (negative)-form out of plywood. After putting the acrylic glass into an oven at approx 170 °C for 10 minutes (according to the thickness: 1 min per 1 mm thickness) it can be bend with ease. Be sure to carry gloves and mind the fact, that it will take some time to cool down. In this time the material is still soft and can loose the shape.
As light source I used the Ledberg Spotlight from IKEA. I stripped the all the plastics and cut out the little diffuser. The base is made from walnut, but any other hardwood would do, even plywood of sufficient thickness. A circle of funky foam gives the lamp a secure stand.
The cutting was done using my desktop cnc-machine by Stepcraft. Acrylic glass should be cut with a singe flute endmill. For the hard wood I used a 3 mm end mill specially intended for cutting wood.
Please keep in mind that the stl is for viewing purpose only. It will not print!
Visit https://www.zenziwerken.de/en/ for more interesting designs.