Caring for a lamp that was printed, not moulded.
A 3D-printed PLA lamp is not fragile — but it has one enemy, and it is not what most people expect. Not water. Not sunlight. Heat.
The one rule: keep it under ~50 °C
PLA — the plant-based plastic our lamps are printed from — is rigid and stable at room temperature, but it begins to soften around 55–60 °C. In a normal room that number never comes up. It only appears in three places:
- Radiators and heaters. Do not park a lamp on or directly above one.
- A car in summer. A parcel shelf behind glass can pass 70 °C. If you transport the lamp, keep it in the cabin, not in a sun-baked boot.
- The wrong bulb. This is the big one — see below.
Bulbs: LED, and only LED
Your lamp ships with a warm-white LED included. When it eventually needs replacing — LEDs last 10,000+ hours, so this is a matter of years — replace like for like: an LED up to 40W-equivalent (that is 4–6 actual watts). Never fit an incandescent or halogen bulb: they run hot enough to soften the printed shade around them. An LED barely warms it.
Cleaning: dry first, damp second, solvents never
Do
- Dust with a dry microfibre cloth or a soft wide paintbrush — the brush gets into layer grooves and fur texture
- For marks: cloth barely dampened with water and a drop of dish soap, then dry
- Unplug before any cleaning
Don't
- Alcohol, acetone, glass cleaner, "magic" sponges — solvents dull or smear the finish
- Running water or soaking — the socket and wiring are not sealed
- Dishwasher. It has been asked. No.
About the layer lines
Look at the surface at an angle and you will see fine horizontal lines — the individual 0.2 mm layers the lamp was built from, hundreds of them. They are not a defect; they are the fingerprint of the process, the same way throwing rings are on a ceramic pot. Lit from inside, they are what gives pieces like the Ribbed Globe or Pleated Noir their striped glow.
Sunlight
Indirect daylight is fine indefinitely. Months of direct sun on a windowsill can slowly mute saturated colours, the way it fades book spines — matte black, cream and bronze tones barely care. If a lamp lives in a bright window, turn it a quarter-turn now and then.
If something chips
Small chips and scratches on a matte finish can usually be softened with fine sandpaper (400+ grit, gently, dry). For anything structural — a dropped lamp, a cracked arm — write to [email protected] with a photo. Because every lamp is printed to order, we can often reprint a single part instead of replacing the whole piece.
Treated to LED light and a dry cloth, a printed lamp keeps its looks for years. That is the whole regimen — heat, solvents, wrong bulbs; avoid those three and there is nothing else to remember.
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