FALLING IN LOVE

I love lights. I believe with a touch of good taste one can turn any room look better, if they used the right lighting. Lighting is the key to good photography after all. 

It's fair to say that I was SUFFERING from the hard light that I had in my bedroom, so I didn't even bother to turn the lights on most of the time. So, I decided to make a change and buy a good wall lamp. I started my search and I found exactly what I wanted!! A huge ring lamp to mount on my wall!

Like this one:

I instantly fell in love and I knew, it had to be this one! But this price!!! really?! it's just a sheet metal with an LED light in it! 

ESPECIALLY, that I found this on Alibaba for about \$20! then I definitely couldn't convince myself to pay this much for it. And the Alibaba thing also would have added an extra \$200 for delivery, so we're back on square one. 

FINE! I'LL DO IT MYSELF

It had to be at least 1m in diameter, so Imma make it even bigger and go 1.5m, why not? I have a Prusa 3D printer at home, I'll make it work! 

No home 3D printer can print such a huge part at once, so I segmented it into 30 pieces to lock to each other. 

each 2 segments took 3 hours to print, so I could finish it in about 3 days. 

I made each part identical and gave them a 5 deg draft angle, so they'd lock in each other without moving. 

After locking them together, I ended up with this:

The difference in color came from the fact that I finished my black PLA roll, so I used a new one. Didn't matter, I thought to myself, I spray paint this. And I do it multiple times to close tiny gaps between segments. 

Wait, I need to calculate the circumference of this circle and purchase a LED strip, which is ok, \$24 bucks only. 

Needless to say I took the mounting to the wall into account too. 3 pods that are hollow that sit on the wall, allow for the screw to fix them tight to the wall, and connect to the back of the right lamp.

THE RESULTS

 I am so happy with the results that I cannot believe the whole thing from idea, to production to execution was all my doing. Well, myself, SolidWorks and a 3D printer! That's all I needed to finish the product under \$75 (including one and a half roll of PLA and spray paints)