Australian lighting manufacturer LimeLite has been steadily rolling out a line of track spots and decorative pendants that use 3D-printed components for the key mechanical pieces. Over the years I’ve covered several other manufacturers launching 3D printing for commercial lighting, … Continue reading limelite – 3D printing and DC power
The LightArt group of architectural surfaces company 3Form has recently launched a line of 3D printed decorative pendants produced from recycled plastics, presumably cuttings and scrap from 3Form’s primary product lines that they’re chopping and extruding into the plastic filaments … Continue reading 3Form launches 3D printed pendants
Nice video featuring Coen Liedenbaum, who is driving the development of the huge 3D printing venture with Signify. For one year I worked for Coen in the venture and I’m glad to see him get some exposure for all of … Continue reading 3D printing at signify
Interplay Lighting is a new startup focused on implementing 3D printing technologies for commercial and residential lighting fixtures. Bootstrapped by lighting industry veteran Gary Trott (who had a long career at Cree Lighting), Interplay just launched a series of pendants … Continue reading interplay lighting
Signify released some new videos promoting their 3D printing venture (which I covered previously in this post). I’m a bit surprised that if you know what you’re looking at, the videos reveal all the basics about what the Signify team … Continue reading signify 3D printing videos
Signify is slowly revealing more of its commercial-scale 3D-printing program, launching the consumer-focused offering “Philips MyCreation” in the Netherlands and Germany. MyCreation allows home consumers to mix and match from a massive variety of styles and colors to build their … Continue reading signify’s 3D-printed “MyCreation” series
Gantri is a San Francisco startup that is using 3D-printing to produce a line of light fixtures. 3D printing greatly reduces the cost and the time associated with traditional product development, requiring no cap-ex or leads times for expensive custom … Continue reading gantri
I saw a couple beautiful pieces by Amsterdam designer Dirk Vander Kooij at the design shop of the W Hotel Amsterdam. The Fresnel Light and a site-specific reception desk (constructed with the same material) both use large-scale 3D printing to … Continue reading dirk vander kooij
Lumecluster is New York based-artist Melissa Ng, who’s created a striking 3D-printed medieval costume with stunning internal LED illumination sewn into the translucent padding. Her design and fabrication process for the piece can be seen here. Continue reading lumecluster
Voxel8 is a Boston-based, Harvard spin-out startup that is integrating the printing of conductive materials directly into 3D printing. The future is pretty obvious at this point: I’ve previously mentioned conductive ink and 3D printing — combining the two is an obvious step … Continue reading voxel8
Autodesk is working on software called “Project Escher” where groups of 3D additive-printers divide the printing of a single large piece. I find especially fascinating the obvious ability to integrate non-additive-printing assembly or fabrication techniques into the production line: Project Escher could also be … Continue reading autodesk project escher
Via Dezeen. “What is fashion missing? Micro-controllers.” Some wild fashion concepts by Dutch designer Anouk Wipprecht that combines 3D printing, embedded lighting, projection mapping, sensors, etc. (not to mention some crazy insane 3D modeling skills!) into some very futuristic ensembles. Gorgeous … Continue reading anouk wipprecht
Via Dezeen. MX3D is a new research and development company co-founded by Joris Laarman and Tim Geurtjens, which plans to use robots to produce the world’s first functional 3D-printed steel bridge over an Amsterdam canal by 2017. Continue reading MX3D
Yingchuang (also named Winsun; I’m not sure the differentiation) is a Shanghai-based construction materials company that is showing some impressive advances in R+D with CNC production, including 3D-printed concrete construction. Yingchuang produces a range of products, including glass reinforced gypsum, special … Continue reading yingchuang
When you are either specifying or engineering a light fixture, I implore you to think about the broader issues of sustainability and the lighting industry’s impact on our tiny planet. There are many sustainability certification programs out there and frankly, I … Continue reading beautiful factories
I posted about them in 2013, but I’m so taken by their creative 3D printed materials and wild forms that I’m posting about them again: Rael San Fratello is an Oakland based architecture studio led by the husband and wife … Continue reading rael san fratello + emerging objects
Italian fixture manufacturer ExNovo utilizes 3D printing technology for some interesting pieces. They follow on the early lead set by Materialise and their MGX line. Continue reading exnovo
Introduction – The Next Evolution Part I – Connected Lighting Part II – Embedded Lighting Miniaturization is a big deal. The lighting industry seems to chronically undervalue the importance of simply shrinking the size of components, to either reduce the overall volume … Continue reading the next evolution of lighting: embedded lighting
Princeton-based McAlpine Research Group has successfully printed a complete combination of conductors and LED emitters, specifically quantum-dot based LED sources. Popular Science has a good explanation of the breakthrough. And the specific research can be found here. Here is the … Continue reading mc alpine research group: completely 3D-printed quantum dot LEDs
Earlier this summer, the US Department of Energy’s SSL program selected Cooper Lighting (now part of Eaton) as the recipient of $2.4m for their interesting R+D program proposal. Cooper’s press release is useless, but here is the text from the DOE’s announcement: Recipient: Eaton Corporation Title: Print-Based Manufacturing of Integrated, Low Cost, High Performance SSL Luminaires Summary: The objective of this project is to develop manufacturing process innovation that allows for LED package, chip, or chip array placement directly on a fixture or heatsink. The approach includes the placement of integrated power electronics. Flexible manufacturing for planar, non-planar and recessed … Continue reading DOE R+D funding: Cooper Lighting wants to print their LED fixtures
