GlowCore is a sculptural lamp designed to house the Bambu LED kit puck and includes an optional glow or color insert. The geometric shell is based on Jessen’s Orthogonal Icosahedron and provides a softly diffused light. With the glow core insert, it emits a gentle night-time glow after the light is off, or can be customized with a color to tint the light output.

This version includes four printable parts:

• Outer geometric shade
• Glow insert (optional)
• LED puck holder
• Base (you glue the shade into this)

Recommended Printing Materials

• PLA for the outer shade (for crisp print quality and diffusion) 
• PETG (or similar) LED puck holder to resist any heat and  for the glow insert (because I had some glow in the dark PETG),
  • Glow-in-the-dark PLA for the insert if using as a night light also works

Important notes on the outer shade:  This is a challenging shape to print due to the mid-print flexibility of the overall shape, which needs to be handled carefully.  The outer shade is printed in vase mode and is sensitive to line widths and speeds and accelerations.  I have printed more than 10 shades to optimize the best settings for a 0.4 nozzle, so I highly recommend you start with my profile for PLA.  If you have a 0.8 mm nozzle I would recommend trying to print it as thick as possible (maybe 1.0 mm?) to enhance the stability of the vase-mode object mid-print, which is the biggest challenge to a good print, as it can get a little wobbly, especially with thin lines.  I had more success on my A1 mini than my H2D in printing this, for whatever reason.  I recommend a white translucent filament at the lower-end of it's printing temperature and printing slowly to get good results.  You will need to be patient as it's a slow print.

The design is optimized for Bambu’s LED puck sold in their Maker Store, but you could use any light here.

Assembly Instructions

The assembly is straightforward. Super-glue is recommended for a permanent hold between the base and shade.

Steps:

1. Insert the LED puck into the puck holder. Ensure it fits snugly.

   

2. Insert the optional glow/color insert into the base.  It will rest on the outside rim of the puck holder when you insert it

   

3. Attach the puck holder to the base by twist-locking it into place.  The cable should align with the hole on the base as shown.

   

4. Place the shade on top. It slots into the base in the recesses in it.  You may add a little glue to the trench to lock it in place once you've test-fit it and are happy.

    

Printing Notes

• Using too fine a layer height, less than 0.2 mm, doesn't make the shade better.  Thicker lines do.
• PLA for the shade, PETG for parts exposed to LED heat directly.
• The glow effect is subtle and will not appear as bright as in photos and will depend on your specific filament.  Good accurate photos are hard to take here because of the tendency for dark shots to overexpose.