Lithophane Lamp and Diffuser

I like lithophanes.

I like the surprise that comes when turning the light on, revealing the photo engraved in the relief.

The one displayed here is my daughter featuring the traditional Breton costume of the "Cercle d'Outre-Ille", Saint-Grégoire, Brittany, France.

For this build you'll need:

1. A photograph of your choosing, preferably with a uniform background
2. White PLA for the lithophane
3. Transparent PETG or PLA for the diffuser/holder.
4. 90x9mm 12v led strip, or any other led strip that would fit the diffuser (I've used this because I had this old strip laying unused).

For best results, here are some recommendations to prepare the photo:

1. Remove the background, this is optional depending on your situation. I've removed the musician who was in the background (using an online AI tool).
2. Slightly enhance the contrast so that fine details show-up more.
3. You may also want to slightly enhance the shadows in order to make details in the shadows more visible.
4. Convert the photo to grayscale.

There are lots of tools available.

I used to use this easy one.

For this one, I turned to itslitho, which has more settings.

I used a minimum thickness of 0.6mm and maximum thickness of 3mm

Here are the slicer settings I've used:

1. Layer height: 0.12mm
2. Infill: 100%
3. Perimers: 99
4. Brim of about 10mm in order to hold the model on the build plate

Print slowly!, typically at half your usual PLA printing speed.

This print took about 6 hours on my Elegoo Neptune 2S.

I designed the diffuser and the frame/diffuser holder base in Fusion 360.

I've attached the model files but you might need to customize them or design your own depending on your lighting setup and actual lithophane dimensions.

I printed them in transparent PETG.

The diffuser tube was designed according to an old 12v led strip that I had laying around.

The diffuser was then glued to its base with a bit of super-glue and the base was glued to the lithophane's back with gel glue.

Even if there are a few print artifacts visible on the background (lines), I'm quite satisfied with the result.

The demo is also available on youtube.