Flexionoid Articulated Lamp

Ah, hinges! This model may be a lamp, but it's secretly an excuse to explore elaborate hinges with in-built locking and adjustment mechanisms!

Yep, those vertically-printing hinges include a lever to unlock the hinge and allow it to move freely, until the lever is released and a locking pin slots into place, keeping the two parts of the hinge fixed together. The best bit about this mechanism is that it's housed entirely in the hub of the hinge, and thus doesn't impact on the hinge's range of motion.

Material Choices

As you might be able to see in the photos, the locking mechanism incorporates a simple spring mechanism into its design. It's this spring that is responsible for pushing the locking pin back into place when the lever is released, but of course different filaments will behave differently, and PLA is notoriously fickle when it comes to this kind of thing.

So, if you want maximum spring performance, consider printing in something that flexes well and springs back, like PETG! My experiences with PLA were still very good, but I did find that on a high-friction matte PLA the pin didn't always have enough push in to full engagement, and I found myself pushing the pin part into place by hand just to be sure that it wouldn't end up slipping due to a tenuous connection.

Robustness and Long Levers

This is probably obvious, but we're ultimately dealing with printed plastic parts that can only handle so much force before something gives way. So, maybe be kind to your lamp and avoid putting too much strain on the articulated arm when it's extended a long way! Finding out which bit gives way first would not be a fun experiment.

Oh, actually, I can do that experiment on one of my test models!
clamps one end to desk
push, push, push.... crack!

Unsurprisingly, it was the locking mechanism that broke, most likely the locking pin shearing off, since that's the smallest part. Would not recommend!

Light sources

The lamp is designed for holding a flat, circular light source, like the IKEA one I've used here. The light plate incorporates a cable channel at the back, and a retention grille fits into the front in order to secure the light in place. The light shade then screws on at the very front.

The light plate fits a light up to about 77mm diameter and 10mm thick

If your particular light fits into the shade area but is too big to go inside the retention grille you can always use that grille as an attachment point and fasten the light source to the outside of it instead!

Print Description

Parts of this model are articulated, so take care that the first layer is nice and neat and that there aren't any print issues such as stringing or overextrusion that might bind moving parts together!

Print Dimensions

The articulated arm assembly occupies 213mm x 217mm on the print bed and is 52mm tall.

Supports Needed?

Not at all!  Designed for straightforward printing!

Scalability

This one should scale reasonably well, with the usual caveats about moving parts getting looser or tighter. It's hard to know what the impact on the hinge locks will be, since slicing profiles will factor in to that, but it's 3D printing, so just give it a try and see what adventures unfold :D

I've successfully scaled it down to 60% of the original size and it came out quite nicely!

Print Orientation

The articulated arms print as a single assembly lying on its side. The light shade prints front-down, the light plate prints back-down, the bolt prints head-down, and the retention grille can print either side up!

Further Thoughts

This whole concept actually came about because I was contemplating tablet stands. The Extraplanetary Phone Stand is such a solid improvement on its predecessor, and it would be fun to do something similar for the tablet version. I was exploring different ways to approach the adjustment lock, and came up with the hub-based mechanism, which won't work well with the planetary gear structure of those stands. I really did want to see if it would work, though, and so we ended up here in lamp land :D

Happy illuminating!
xoxo
Sven.

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466 Flexionoid Articulated Lamp