Another [ C60 buckyball / truncated icosahedron / soccer-ball ] lamp.

The facets on this one are designed to shade the lamp bulb only when viewed directly, and otherwise be transparent to the inside of the lamp. This effect was generally successful but less impressive than I expected.

The first design ( modern_pentagon, modern_hexagon, baffel ) had these flaws : -- weak, flexible walls made hinges hard to manage -- impossibly tight hinges ( required removing a lot of plastic ) -- weak supports for the light-diffusing inner panels;

The lamp pictured was built with the original design. However, I updated the design ( modern_pentagon_revised, modern_hexagon_revised, baffel_revised ) to attempt to correct these three problems.

I would print and test the hinge fit for the revised pieces, I expect them to be stronger and easier to work with, but there may be unexpected problems. You can also tweak the parameters in the .scad file yourself.

Print 12 pentagons and 19 hexagons.

Using a hobby knife, remove the stabilizing material from the hinges. If necessary, also clean out stray plastic within the hinges.

Using a well calibrated machine with oozebane or a stepper extruder will simplify clean-up of the hinges.

If hinges do not mate easily and securely, trim the bumps on the hinges down with a knife. Preferably, adjust the design in scad until the hinges mate easily.

Assemble a soccer-ball shaped sphere, leaving one hexagon out. As I used the original pieces, this was extremely difficult and required thinning out the hinges by hand quite a bit. Perhaps the revised parameters will make it easier.

Build http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7857

Add the final hexagon piece ( bottom of print facing outside ) to complete the geodesic sphere. Note that only the smallest of the commercial CFL light-bulbs fit into the shade.

note on hinge clearance : The hinges can sometimes be a little tight. Make sure the first layer isn't pressed too far into the build platform. A compressed first layer will propagate up and make part of the hinge wider, decreasing the clearance. These parts are designed to fit tightly and may require pliers to assemble. If all else fails, removing some of the pins on the hinges can make assembly easier.