Thunderbird logo wall light

Requirements

• Blue and white PLA. I used eSUN PLA+ AV Blue,  but any deep blue filament should work. PETG should work too, and might be more translucent than PLA.
• White LED strips, ideally those that looks like neons with lots of tiny LEDs, and with a high color temperature (pure white, not yellow).
• Eventually a small resistor to reduce LED intensity

Before printing

• Import the step file into prusa slicer and split into objects (all parts are contained in a single step file)
• Make sure your bed mesh is really well calibrated !
• Set first layer height to 0.1mm. The thinnest areas are only 0.2mm thick, and having 2 layers is better for strength and uniformity
• The bottom layers of the front parts must be 100% filled (minimum bottom shell thickness: 0.5mm)
• Only the bird part is printed in blue. Other parts are meant to be printed in white, to match the logo colors and improve light diffusion
• You can scale down the print, as long as the walls are correctly printed (tested at 80%)

Troubleshooting

• If your first layer is uneven, adjust the bed mesh, or try solution below
• If your first layer has gaps between lines, increase the flow rate for the first layer (I used 130% flow rate) or adjust the Z offset to print closer to the bed.
• You may also experiment with the “infill/perimeter overlap” parameter to reduce gaps between lines on the first layer
• If there are gaps between the infill and the walls, try the “Monotonic Lines” infill pattern

Post-processing

• The white eye part fits tightly, you may need to file down the edges to avoid cracking the eye socket when inserting
• The white letter part must be glued to the blue part from the inside (otherwise the white part may bend and fall down)
• Place white led strips on the beak, head and back until the tail (you don't need to light up the end of the tail since it's already the darkest area of the logo)
• I added a small resistor on the led strip, to get a softer glow