I've never posted anything on Maker World, but figured I would give it a shot since I use so many models from the community.  Last year for Christmas, my goal was to make a battery powered lithophane light box that I could quickly and efficiently print for my family members, and I was successful in doing so.  The issue with last years design was the fact that it ran on batteries, and required A LOT of soldering and setup, so this year I set out on generating a re-make that would work better.  This design uses no hardware, requires no soldering, and the only thing you have to buy is a candelabra base (link below) and a light bulb, everything else just snaps and or slides together!

The beauty of this model and why it's so nice to use as gifts is the ease of swapping out photos.  Since nothing is glue or screwed together, it takes a matter of seconds to swap out a photo.  Because of this you can just make whomever extra lithophanes rather than having to make an entirely new box!

SETTING YOUR PICTURES UP

For the photos used, you will need to crop your photo down by pixel size, which can be a little interresting if you've never done that before.  The tool I use is at the following link ([https://www.resizepixel.com/](https://www.resizepixel.com/)).  To resize your picture, you will have to use multiples of the width (136.4mm) and height (152.4mm) of the actual lithophane.  Just in case this is confusing, I'll include a table of values below that can be manually input when re-sizing your pictures at the above link. 

Once your photo is re-sized accordingly, download your photo.

DESIGNING THE LITHOPHANE

To design the lithophane, I use the tool at ([https://itslitho.com/](https://itslitho.com/)).  Once you've uploaded your photo, there are a few fields you will want to update to make your model fit in the body that holds the lithophane.  These fields are as follows

Shape Options:

• Width: 136.4mm
• Height: 152.4mm
• Min Thick: 0.8mm
• Max Think: 1.8mm (this is the settings I used, but can be adjusted for more detail at your own risk)

Frame Options:

• Thickness: 3mm
• Depth: 3mm
• Angle: 0deg

With the above settings your lithophane should be perfectly sized to fit the box. 

SETTING UP TO PRINT

Once you have all of your lithophanes, I recommend loading them all into the slicer and double checking the dimension, I had a few where the dimensions were a little off, I also opted to size my lithophanes down to 152.2 x 136.2 (cut 2mm off on each axis) as a personal preference for ease of removal.  For the lithophanes, I printed using polymaker ASA with Bambu's polymaker ASA settings on the defaul 0.08mm layer height setting with 100% infill.  For the body, top, and back portion I used polymaker PLA with Bambu's polymaker PLA settings on the default 0.2mm layer height setting with the only change being gyroid infill. 

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO BUY

The only slightly unfortunate thing about this is that is uses a very specific base for the light, however it's what I prefer and snaps into the model perfectly.  I buy them at lowes and they typically are $5-$8 at my local store, the link for those are as follows ([https://www.lowes.com/pd/Portfolio-5-ft-16-AWG-2-Conductor-Clear-Lamp-Cord/1000040725](https://www.lowes.com/pd/Portfolio-5-ft-16-AWG-2-Conductor-Clear-Lamp-Cord/1000040725)).  For the bulb I recommend a 40w-60w LED bulb so you get the brightness you need to shine through the plastic.  

*****WARNINGS*****

PLEASE USE AN LED LIGHT ONLY AS THEY DO NOT GET HOT LIKE INCADESCENT BULBS.  I USED ASA FOR THE LITHOPHANE PORTIONS FOR A REASON, PLA WILL WORK FOR THE ENTIRE MODEL AS LONG AS IT IS NOT SITTING IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT

LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS AND IF THERE ARE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR UPDATES! THANKS FOR LOOKING AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!