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

April 25, 2011
Looking for additions to our own IT Crow...

(Thanks for the interest - welcome Chris to the team!) Our IT task at Solarbotics have grown beyond "Did you try turning it off and then on again?", so we're in the hiring market for an IT Guru & website manager. Please, we're only interested in applicants that can work here, in Calgary, Alberta. Sorry, […]

March 5, 2018
Painted GraviTrack

We always enjoy seeing our products being modified, revamped and DIY-ed, as well as the results of these transformations. Our customer Vera Kark provided us with some thoughtful feedback on adding mechanical tweaks to improve our Solar GraviTrack build and documentation. She also painted the brown MDF of the machine. She used tempera paint on the wood components still in panelized […]

March 13, 2009
GM17 Accessories and Gears/Pinions/Spurs

If you'll recall correctly, in last week's news post I said something along the lines of "Keep an eye out for new PICAXE bundles in the coming week." But I was quickly bound and gagged by a pack of vicious lawn gnomes (packing lawn gnome-sized guns, no less), preventing me from fulfilling the promise.  So […]

December 12, 2006
New SCC3733a-MSE Solarcell

What's so special about the new SCC3733a-MSE? Two things: It's machine-assembled with new high-quality Russian solar cells (the best commercial cells we've tested yet) It comes with a Miller Solarengine circuit pre-etched on the rear of the solarcell! We have only a limited number of these cells presently, so if you're looking for the absolutely […]

1 44 45 46 47 48 254
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.