3D Printed Treetop Star

Solar botics
December 9, 2014

Initially inspired by the Moravian Star on Instructables and the fact that we now carry all kinds of 3D printing filament, we decided to make one of our own glowy holiday star. We have used this thing as source files to create a similar treetop decoration of our own.

After some trial and error (due to the Slicer not cooperating)...

...we printed a whole forest of perfect wintery spiky star-ends.

And, well, we just had to have someone live there for a bit. In this case, a snowman:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our  addressable 5mm LEDs were well suited to light this contraption. We drilled a hole in the bottom of each spike..

..to fit the LED's domed part:

   

And then wired everything up. It wasn't pretty but the WS2812 LED that we used made it much easier than a conventional RGB LED: rather than 3 separate channels, the WS2812 LED only has a data in and data out. Chain them all together and they work like a charm!

 

 

And here's the final product, ready to light up our office with wonderful glowing lights!

 

 

 

MORE POSTS

March 20, 2001
Mark Lecturing in Maryland, not Texas!

Whups! Sorry, we got a fact wrong listing Mark's lecture at the Goddard Space Flight Center. It's not in Houston, Texas - it's in Greenbelt, Maryland (March 23). Our apologies to Goddard Space Flight Center - I'm sure they weren't looking forward to a 1400 mile moveÂ…

August 28, 2012
Project Mon(Tues)day: Pinewood Lowrider

Jerome, our squiggly-bearded intern from many moons ago that created the BeetleBot, just pointed us towards this totally pimpin' pinewood derby car. The author from sliptonic.com shows how he made his sweet lowrider with hydaulic(esque) action by using a small micro-servo for each wheel, an Ardweeny for brains, and a 9V battery for power. The […]

February 13, 2013
Wednesday Cool Links: Laser Experiments,...

Look! Bird (-shaped bullets) made holes in bird... feathers! Well, not quite, although that would have been awesome too. Actually we were doing some nitrogen-assisted laser tests on various regular, i.e. boring materials, such as plywood and mat board. Then I came across some feathers and here's what it turned out to be: Now that […]

September 29, 2010
Arduino Uno and Neeeew York City!

We're back from the Open Source Hardware Summit and the Maker Faire! Did lots; learned lots; got lots of touristy things done too. One of the main highlights was meeting and listening to talks by three of the principle members of the Arduino team.  They took pity on English-speakers, and named the new revision the […]

Solarbotics Ltd Logo
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.

cart