BY ITSLITHO
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Looking for some cool Christmas 3D prints to decorate your home during your holiday season? Or are you looking for a unique 3D print gift, that can be personalized? Then we have the perfect suggestion for you. We present to you…. 3D printed Christmas lithophane Ornaments!
Lithophanes are a great way to light up these dark & festive days. It’s a concept where 3D printing & light comes together to create a magical piece of art.
In this post, we will highlight different ideas for you to 3D print as Christmas decorations. With the help of ItsIitho, you can easily personalize these 3D print lithophanes yourself! This makes lithophanes, great 3D printed gifts.
ItsLitho is a tool that lets you convert images to STL lithophane files, which can be 3D printed. ItsLitho comes with a set of different shapes, that has a lot of options for you to customize. Especially for Christmas, itslitho has designed Christmas-related shaped lithophanes, that you can use for free.
We will highlight in this post how you can make these lithophanes into 3D printed Christmas Decorations.
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First, we start with the sphere-shaped lithophane. The sphere shape is a great way to make a Christmas ball lithophanes. It’s perfect for your Christmas tree. The Christmas spirit fits perfectly with these lighted Christmas balls. And by personalizing it with images of your loved ones they are truly magical.
Making these Christmas ball lithophanes are relatively simple with the sphere-shaped lithophane from itslitho. The real challenge is finding a way to decorate & lighten them up.
We highlight 3 ways for you to make these Christmas balls lighted up & decorate your Christmas tree with.
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There are different techniques to attach the lithophane ornament to the Christmas tree. One way can be done by adding a loop to the lithophane STL.
This can be done in combination with ItsLitho lithophane maker & a CAD program. Use Itslitho to make your sphere-shaped lithophane. Use a CAD program to edit & design the downloaded lithophane STL file & add a hook to your preferences.
It requires some practice to get the hang of designing, but if you are already familiar with CAD designing, it’s a piece of cake. A good beginning program to learn the basics is Thinkercad.
In the images, you can see an example design for a custom-made lithophane Christmas ball. The lithophane is lit up with a Fairy light.
Thanks to Timeless Zion 3D Gifts for the designing ideas!
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This is a solution without the use of an additional CAD program. This model can be fully designed in ItsLitho. All you need to have is a LED lantern balloon light and optional some glue.
To make these Chrismas lithophane balls you need to keep a hole on top, the size of the balloon light in diameters (with a tolerance of 0.2mm).
To do this in ItsLitho use a sphere for a shape, and keep an eye on the top diameter (see images below). This is the parameter that needs to be the size of the balloon light diameter. You can change this parameter by adjusting the general diameter or the Vert Angle.
To add more support for the light, use a frame like seen above. This also adds the look of a Christmas ball to the lithophane.
For the attachment of the LED lights simply plug the light in the top of the Christmas ball. If the light doesn’t get stuck by itself, use some glue to make it stay in place. That’s it!
If the battery is done, we suggest replacing the old battery with Duracell LR44 , these will expand the number of light hours.
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The last technique is the most consistent & durable technique to make a 3D printed Christmas ball ornament.
This Christmas model requires this profile of itslitho combined with add-ons that are provided from Cults in this Guide. The Christmas lithophane is made for Garland lights as the light source.
The add-ons are specially made for the itslitho profile. They can be clicked on the lithophane, and that’s it! The top of the attribute supports the Christmas string light. And the add-ons are made in shapes!
The best part about this technique is that you can use your regular Christmas tree lights without a battery, so the only limitation of light hours is your energy bill!
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Another great shape for 3D printed Christmas decoration is the Christmas bell lithophane. You can place this design just standing up somewhere but with an additional attribute you could also hang it up to something.
If you also use the attribute you can easily light up the lithophane with led lights around the attribute.
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ItsLitho also made some special Christmas shapes. These are plane shapes just like your regular lithophane but now as Christmas shapes.
You can choose from a Christmas star lithophane, Christmas tree lithophane & Christmas ball lithophane.
To make it easier for you to present them in your living room, ItsLitho made a “loop” attribute so you could hang them up.
To light these lithophanes up, we made use of Garland lights and placed them behind. You could also do this in your Christmas tree with the loop attribute.
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Christmas is also about sharing & caring with your loved ones. Giving them a magical personalized unique gift fits the Christmas spirit perfectly!
Just like the plane Christmas shape lithophanes, ItsLitho also made it possible for you to make a plane heart lithophane!
3D printing lithophanes are a little bit different than your average 3D model prints. That’s why we made a guide for you to help you get started with printing lithophanes!
We highlight the most important settings and how to tune them.
We hope that we gave you some inspiration for this Christmas to 3D print. We already wish everybody a wonderful & lightful Christmas!
If you liked this guide, we appreciate it, if you help us spread the word, and share it with your friends!
Free online designing software that helps you create high-quality 3D printed lithophanes. It’s a simple yet powerful cross-platform lithophane maker.
