Lab window · not a service desk

We make parametric lamp forms in Xiamen.

This site opens print-tested editions to individuals. No login on this page. The farm, the bath, and the definitions are here so you can see how a file earns its place on the shelf.

Meet the team. Read the methods. Members slice in the Studio.

photo: form study

01 — Form

A family before a file

We start with a surface, not a SKU. Minimal surfaces, sine displacements, and biomimetic shells sit in Grasshopper as families, not one-offs. A single definition can yield a 140 mm pendant and a 200 mm table shade by changing radius, period, and wall offset.

We keep the math visible: you will see the same undulation language across a month’s drop. The point is not novelty for its own sake. It is a form that still looks like a lamp when the layer lines show. Printsurf opens those families as print-tested editions. The finished-goods path stays on minsurf.com. Here you get the file, the notes, and the constraints we already solved.

photo: workbench

02 — Make it printable

Wall, parts, light

A beautiful mesh is not a printable lamp. We set wall thickness for a 0.4 nozzle, split large shades into stacked rings or a cap-plus-body, and decide where supports may touch. Light has to pass. Too thick and the shade goes dead; too thin and the wall gaps.

We mark seam, brim, and orientation in the 3MF. If a clip or ring is still immature, it stays on the free shelf, not in a paid drop. The goal is a file a home FDM owner can finish in one weekend, with notes we would give our own farm.

photo: water test

03 — Test

The bath, then a finished lamp

We do not photograph lamp-holders. We test outflow and structure. Shades go into a water bath so we can see how a thin wall takes load and how light would move through the same section. We hang, we stack, we press. Failures stay in the lab.

What we publish has already sat under a finished lamp we ran out of the farm. That is why the site says print-tested, not just printable. You are not buying a raw experiment. You are buying a form that already lived as light. Why we test lamps in water.

photo: print farm

04 — Farm

Small batch, then the 3MF

The farm is small. A few printers, a materials shelf, and a habit of slicing the same file three ways before we call it a drop. We print PLA when the form is gentle and PETG when the wall needs spring. Each paid edition ships as a pre-sliced 3MF plus a raw mesh.

Layer-height ticks and nozzle notes sit on the card. We do not run 150 SKUs. We run a monthly shelf. If you need a crate of finished lamps, that is a different door — the fence is below.