Mushrooms on a log nightlight

Glowing mushroom nightlight powered from a USB wall charger, sculpted in Blender.

Printing instructions

All parts are best printed with organic supports on the build plate only. The log should be printed with the hollow end towards the build plate (i.e. rotated by -90° around the X axis) and “don't support bridges” active to save a lot of filament.

For the mushroom cluster, it is recommended to print the version with support blockers; this prevents supports from going up the tubes (as long as supports are enabled on the build plate only) where they cannot be removed. Use the “place on face” tool to align the flat side of the foot to the build plate.

If you have a multi-extrusion printer, use multimaterial painting in PrusaSlicer to change the material of the foot of the mushroom cluster. With the Smart Fill tool set to 30%, you can paint it in 4 clicks. If you do not have a multi-material printer, you can add a filament change at 6.6 mm instead.

The best effect is achieved by printing the mushrooms in a glow-in-the-dark filament. Remember to use a hardened nozzle!

Assembly instructions

Each mushroom fits a single 5 mm LED, ideally a violet/UV one (~405 nm) when used with glow-in-the-dark filament. Solder some wires and a resistor (150 to 330 Ω should suffice) to each LED, extending some 15 cm out from the bottom of the mushroom foot. Protect the solder joints with some heat-shrink tubing. Attach a male USB-A connector (e.g. one of these) to the other end.

Insert the LEDs into the mushroom tubes and fix them in place with hot glue. Then glue the mushroom cluster into the appropriate hole in the log. N.B. the fit may be a bit loose; a space-filling glue is recommended.

Next, take a cheap 5 V USB wall charger and glue one of the Rail parts to the top, dimpled side facing upwards. The 34 mm rail is recommended for dual sockets (as in the photo). Alternatively, the 9 mm rail will more or less centre the log on the wall socket, depending on the dimensions of the charger.

Plug the USB charger into the wall socket, then insert the USB plug (at this point, the mushrooms should light up, obviously). Finally, slide the log over the rail until it hits the wall.

Note on Blender file

Due to the file size limit, I've had to strip some parts from the Blender file, so it is not possible to directly obtain the STLs from it. However, using Boolean operations with the objects present in the file, it should be fairly simple to reproduce them.