Lighthouse

UPDATE: Version02 replaces v01 and fixes some filament sag issues and adds door peaks.

I recently taught a small group of people about the basics of using OpenSCAD. One woman was particularly excited to pursue it further because she is developing ideas for figures to place into her garden. That made me think about my own part of the world, New England, where lighthouses are still to be found. That spurred the development of this design.

I considered using a tapered cylinder for the lighthouse, but thought that a hexagonal one might look more "authentic". I didn't feel smart enough to make the hexagon as a polygon by myself, so I used Inkscape to make one and read the points off the Inkscape path.

I didn't think about size as I rushed to get going, instead of being patient and taking time to calculate some proper printing dimensions. I built the OpenSCAD design directly off that first hexagon's measurements. It makes a LARGE lighthouse with the attached living quarters built to match the tower of the light. That turns out to be a relatively small problem. I'm printing the results at a 0.3 scale (about 110mm long, taking around 4 hours to print) on the Lulzbot Mini and am pretty happy with the look. A future iteration of this project will, perhaps, resize everything to more accurately suit my small printer. In the meantime, I am going to apply the aphorism "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good [enough]."

If nothing more, I hope this design will spur you to make YOUR version "just right.

Enjoy yourself while you design your own next project!

Available Files:

SCAD files for study/modification and STL files for quick prints

Sorry! I made a typo in the SCAD file name. It's fixed now so that the lighthouse SCAD file will download correctly.