Saturn Light

Ikea used to sell a ceiling light called Blimp, it looked like this:

The power supply died, then when that was replaced the bulb died so we looked at it and wondered if we could fix it, but make it much more awesome. My Dad loves RBG Leds so wanted to fit one LED to each of the lenses, but the lenses were coloured plastic.

Fast forward 3 or 4 years later and it's finally working!

Each lens has been replaced with a custom made lens. The bottom half is replaced with lenses made by making a silicone mold of one of the original lenses, and then casting from that mold using clear Epoxy Resin. This took a long time and was quite flakey, so the top half has been populated with lenses made from our resin 3d printer. They come out of the printer looking opaque so to make them clear again we dip them in the resin and then cause the wet resin to harden with a UV torch.

The RGB Leds are ws2812's (neopixels) and are controlled using a Raspberry Pico W with a Oled screen and a rotary encoder.

Here are some various files that were used to help put it all together:

3d Printed Lens

Laser Cut cone mounts for LED's

PCB Design for laser design etching

Laser Cut Case

NOTE The PCB was created in Fritzing generate the circuit board design and because was flipped for the circuit board underside it had incorrect pins for the OLED breakout board, so bodge wires were needed.