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)