HOWTO Make a giant spherical metalamp out of dozens of cheap Ikea lamps

Here's an Instructable from user Daan for making giant meta-lamps out of Ikea's Lampan lamps. Man, Ikea is really poised to sit at the center of a global modder culture -- unlike Pringles cans, Monopoly sets, or other low-cost consumer goods, there's practically no localization in Ikea goods (hence the specialized heiroglyphics on the photocopied instruction sheets that accompany them), meaning that the lamp you mod in Mumbai is identical to the one I'm modding in Los Angeles.

This Instructable shows you how to build large spherical lamps out of Ikea lampan lamps ( $4.99 each ). The lamps are based on platonic solids. With this method I have built large spheres up to 32 lamps. In the PDF below i included three templates: for the six, twelve and 32 lamp versions. These are all generated from a python script in the Maya software. I calculated that the largest sphere that could be build has about 120 lamps and i would love to build that one; but it will be heavy and bright and probably needs some serious thinking on the structural integrity.

Big lamps from Ikea lampan lamps (via Cribcandy)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Eric Carlson

This seems a little big for my apartment. But it is AMAZING!
Daemon

How very katamari.
Alpinwolf

Uber-bumble-ball Gundam Nova!

If someone turns on the wiggle switch, best clear the room….
Anonymous

I hate to be the pragmatic one but I REALLY hope he puts some good CFL or LED lightbulbs in there because replacing all the bulbs on that would be a huge pain in the ass! :)
Really beautiful design though, great Instructable!
Parn

I wish there was Ikea in Brazil. I live in BrasÃlia and I’m sure Ikea would be a huge success here. Coincidentally, the perfect place for the store isn’t far from where I live.
airshowfan

Well, technically, it’s dodecahedral… ;)

Parn, does Tok & Stok still exist? Wasn’t it pretty much the same thing? ;) (Yes, I know that the point of the global-modder-culture comment is that Ikea and its products are exactly the same all over the world, which is remarkable indeed).
Jacques

This kind of reminds me of a lamp I made when i was a kid (way back in the 60s) out of used coffee creamers that my dad would collect for me on his travelling salesman road trips. I loved that lamp, but it kind of smelled like rancid cream.
MarkM

Are these UL-listed?
And, more importantly, can these be used as AD&D dice?
efalk

Looks like a rat king to me.
Oskar

BTW, if anyone is curious, “Lampan” is just “The Lamp” in Swedish (as in the the definite form of “lamp”). So “The Lampan lamp” means “The Lamp lamp”. Ikea’s names are funny like that. They’re the same all over the world, but many of them are clever Swedish phrases, so only us Swedes get the joke while the rest of you dunces are in the dark :)