How to Make a 3D Printed Coral Lamp

The Coral lamp is one of the lamps you design in the Studio, Leora's parametric lamp designer, right in your browser. It starts as a smooth shell, and the Studio grows round branches over it: about 650 on the lamp as the Studio opens it. You set how far they grow, how they look, which colours they wear and what is written on the lamp, then download the files and print it on your own 3D printer.

As the Studio opens it, the lamp is about 170 mm across and 159 mm tall. The lampshade prints as one piece, shell, branches and foot together, with a separate LED housing that locks into the foot. The light is Bambu Lab's LED Lamp Kit 001, a 5 V, 3 W warm white LED module on a USB cable, and it shines out between the branches. Older versions of Leora's lamp designs use the Posaluce base from Creative Cables, and an option to use the lamps with Creative Cables' SnakeBis cord set is coming soon.

1. 1Go to Models and scroll to the Studio.
2. 2Choose Coral, the first lamp at the top of the panel.
3. 3Work through the five steps under it: 1 Grow, 2 Branches, 3 Overhang, 4 Colour and 5 Paint.

At the bottom of the stage, two numbers update as you work: the filament the lamp takes, in grams, and how much of the lamp overhangs at your support angle. The weight is an estimate for 2 walls and 15% infill, without the filament purged when the printer changes colour.

The round arrow beside each slider's value resets that slider. Reset, at the top of the stage, resets the whole lamp after asking.

Let it grow is the first slider of the Grow step. At month 0 the shell shows between a few thin branches; month by month they lengthen, branch out and fill the gaps, until the lamp is full grown at month 12.

Shuffle

Shuffle, at the top of the stage, grows a new set of branches with the same settings: the same age, shape and colours.

• Height

  What it does

  Makes the lamp squat or tall.

  Range

  136 to 206 mm (159 mm to start)

• Depth

  What it does

  Sets how far the branches stand off the shell.

  Range

  12 to 30 mm (20 mm to start)

• Open

  What it does

  Opens bands where the branches are shorter and thinner.

  Range

  Closed to 100%

• Bands

  What it does

  Sets how many open bands there are. It appears once Open is above zero.

  Range

  2, 3, 4 or 5

• Twist

  What it does

  Turns the branches to the left or to the right around the lamp.

  Range

  240° left to 240° right (120° right to start)

Height and Depth change the lamp's size. With both at their highest, the lamp is about 190 mm across and 218 mm tall. If it no longer fits a printer, the Download sheet greys that printer out and says why when you press it.

1. 1In the Grow step, scroll to Add logo and press On. Leora's logo appears as a placeholder.
2. 2Press Upload and choose your logo. A PNG with a clear background works best, and JPEG, WebP and SVG files work too. Once your logo is in, Change replaces it with another one.
3. 3Drag Logo size to set the logo's width, from 30 to 60 mm. It starts at 46 mm.
4. 4Open Logo colour and choose As the lamp to print the logo in the lamp's colour, or Its own to give it a spool of its own.

The logo sits on the crown of the shell, raised 0.8 mm (four 0.2 mm layers), and shows best from above.

A logo in its own colour adds a spool. One AMS holds four, and the Studio tells you when your lamp needs more than that.

1. 1In the Grow step, scroll to Limited Edition and tick Make this lamp a limited edition. The view turns to the front of the lamp, where the mark goes.
2. 2Enter the Edition size: how many lamps of this design there will ever be, from 1 to 9,999. It starts at 100.
3. 3Enter This lamp's number, from 1 up to the edition size.
4. 4Turn Production date on to add the day the lamp was made, and choose the day, month and year.
5. 5Open Mark colour and choose As the lamp, or Its own for a colour that stands out.

The line is printed at the front of the foot, for example 7 OF 50 2026-10-26, and the panel shows it exactly as it will print.

• Density

  What it does

  Sets how many branches grow, from sparse to dense.

  Range

  1 to 10 (6 to start)

• Thickness

  What it does

  Sets how thick each branch is.

  Range

  3 to 8 mm (5 mm to start)

• Taper

  What it does

  Thins each branch toward its tip.

  Range

  Even to Pointed, 0 to 60%

• Wave

  What it does

  Winds the branches from side to side.

  Range

  Straight to Wavy, 0 to 100%

• Tips

  What it does

  Sets where the branches end: close to the shell, everywhere, or out at the rim.

  Range

  From Tucked in through Everywhere to At the rim

• Tip shape

  What it does

  Round ends every branch in a smooth ball. Hollow cuts the same ball into a shallow bowl.

  Range

  Round or Hollow

Denser and thicker branches take more filament.

A 3D printer builds each layer on the one below, so a branch that leans out too flat has nothing underneath it. The slicer adds supports there: temporary structures that you break off after printing. Its support threshold angle decides which surfaces get them, as Bambu Studio's guide explains.

1. 1Open 3 Overhang and set Show overhangs to On. The parts of the lamp that would need support turn red.
2. 2Set Limit to your slicer's support threshold angle, from 10° to 45°. It starts at 20°, and the project you download uses the same angle.
3. 3Drag Lift to the right. It raises the flat branches so that they stand steeper, and the red fades. At 100%, marked No overhang, no branch needs support at your Limit.

The panel counts as you go: the share of the branches that need support at your Limit, and how many branches hang down. In the film, a white lamp at a 40° limit goes from 4.3% to 0.0% as Lift goes from 0 to 100%.

Lift starts at 75%, so the lamp as the Studio opens it needs very little support. Supports stay switched on in the project, as slim tree supports, so anything that still needs one gets it.

In the Colour step, first choose the material, PLA or PETG. Then choose a style for the whole lamp:

• Organic: a base colour, an accent colour and a pattern painted onto the lamp. Choose one of 17 Organic presets, from Reef and Ruby to Lagoon and Coral garden, or one of 6 two-colour presets, such as Red coral and Waterline.
• Stripes: bands of colour up the lamp, each colour change set in the project at its exact height. Choose one of 10 Stripe presets, and with Repeat, run the palette up the lamp 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 or 16 times for more, thinner stripes.
• One colour: the whole lamp in one spool, like the white lamp in the photos.

Each colour of a palette has its own row: press it to choose another spool for that part of the lamp. The Studio counts the spools your lamp needs, including a logo or a mark in its own colour, and tells you when that is more than the four that one AMS holds.

Stripes and Organic are multicolour prints: they change filament while the lamp prints, so they need a printer that changes filament on its own, such as one with an AMS. Organic needs every colour in every layer, so the printer changes filament more often than with Stripes: it prints slower and purges more.

PLA Basic and PLA Translucent can be mixed on one lamp. PETG doesn't bond well with PLA, so a PETG lamp is PETG throughout.

• Tide: the accent colour rises from the foot to a wavy line.
• Edge: the accent colour on the end of every branch.
• Pattern: Dots, round dots in three sizes on the shell and the branches; Vines, winding lines along the branches; Maze, winding, forking lines; Bands, rings round every branch, edged in the accent colour; or Net, a net of lines.
• None, Some or Many: how much of the pattern there is.
• Scale: makes the pattern larger.

The tools

• Brush paints where you drag. Choose a colour, a pattern and the brush size. On a keyboard, − and + change the size.
• Fill paints a whole branch, and every branch that grows from it. Click a branch to fill it.
• Picture lays a picture or a shape on the lamp. Choose a picture of your own, or one of eight shapes: Nautilus, Ginkgo, Butterfly, Jellyfish, Mandala, Snowflake, Fern and Lotus. Drag on the lamp to move it, set Picture size and Turn, then press Place.
• Eraser takes paint away. Undo, Redo and Clear all are just under the tools.

Patterns and colours

Besides Solid, the brush paints Dots, Veins, Maze, Net, Rings, Tips or Spray, each in three sizes: Small, Medium and Large. Rings and Tips colour the branches by their ends, and Spray is fine specks that thin out at the stroke's edge. The colour row suggests spools that stand out on your lamp, and the plus button opens every spool.

Under On the lamp, every colour and pattern you have used is kept as a style: choose one to paint with it again, or press × to take it off. A lamp takes four paint colours, each in any pattern and size, sixteen styles in all, and three pictures. A picture reads best from the side it was laid on from, and lines thinner than about 1.5 mm don't print well.

A painted lamp prints as Organic does: the printer changes filament more often, so it is slower and purges more.

• Turn: drag the lamp.
• Move: right-drag, or hold Shift and drag.
• Zoom: scroll, or use the zoom buttons on the stage.
• On a phone or tablet: drag with one finger to turn, drag with two fingers to move, and pinch to zoom.

The button with four arrows shows these moves, and its Centre the lamp button brings the lamp back to the middle.

Full screen

The full screen button, under the view button, lets the Studio fill your screen. Press it again, or press Esc, to exit full screen.

Without an account, your lamps are kept in this browser only. When you sign in, they are kept in your account, and lamps you saved in the browser move into it.

1. 1Press Download at the bottom of the panel.
2. 2Check the nozzle: the Coral is made for a 0.4 mm nozzle, so 0.4 mm is chosen.
3. 3Choose your printer's bed: A1 mini (180 × 180 mm), A1 (256 × 256 mm), P1S and X1 (256 × 256 mm), A2L (330 × 320 mm), or H2D, H2S and H2C (330 × 320 mm). A printer that your lamp doesn't fit is greyed, and says why when you press it.
4. 4Turn on Also include STL files if you use a slicer other than Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer, for example with a printer of another brand.
5. 5Press Download. By downloading, you accept the license for this lamp: the files may never be shared or sold.

The folder holds:

• Your lamp's 3MF file: the project for Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer. Plate 1 is the lamp and plate 2 is the LED housing, with Bambu Lab's printer, process and filament presets set and the colours in place.
• The Coral's printing and assembly instructions, as a PDF.
• Filaments.txt: your lamp's filaments, numbered as the project numbers them.
• License.pdf: the license you downloaded under.
• For other slicers (STL): the lamp and the LED housing as STL files, if you asked for them. STL files carry no colours.

The A1 mini prints a one-colour Coral up to 180 mm tall. A lamp in more than one colour needs room for the prime tower beside it, so it needs a 256 mm bed or larger.

The 3MF project opens in Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer with every setting in place. With any other slicer, use the STL files and these main settings:

• Nozzle

  Value

  0.4 mm

• Layer height

  Value

  0.20 mm, first layer 0.20 mm

• Walls

  Value

  4, with the Arachne wall generator

• Infill

  Value

  25% gyroid in the lamp, 15% in the LED housing

• Outer wall speed

  Value

  60 mm/s

• Supports

  Value

  On, Tree (Slim), threshold angle 20° or your Limit, top Z distance 0.21 mm, bottom Z distance 0.22 mm

• Build plate

  Value

  Textured PEI, with a thin layer of glue

• Filament

  Value

  PLA or PETG; the Studio's colours are Bambu Lab PLA Basic, PLA Translucent and PETG Translucent

From the printing instructions that come with every Coral lamp download. On the A1, the project also slows down gradually as the lamp grows taller, from 60 mm/s at 120 mm to 30 mm/s at 162 mm. Fine-tune the settings for your printer, filament and room.

• A 3D printer with a bed of at least 180 × 180 mm. The download has ready projects for Bambu Lab's 180 × 180, 256 × 256 and 330 × 320 mm beds, and STL files for any other printer.
• A 0.4 mm nozzle.
• PLA or PETG filament in your lamp's colours. Every colour in the Studio is a Bambu Lab spool; other brands work too, but print quality, fit and the way light comes through may vary. The Studio estimates about 330 g for the lamp as it opens, and shows the estimate for yours at the bottom of the stage.
• For more than one colour (Organic, Stripes, paint, or a logo or a mark in its own colour): a printer that changes filament on its own, such as one with an AMS, and the 3MF project, because STL files carry no colours.
• The Bambu Lab LED Lamp Kit 001, often called the Bambu lamp kit, and a certified 5 V USB power adapter, or a USB port.
• A glue stick for the build plate.

Designing in the Studio is free. Downloading the Coral lamp is included in the Plus and Pro plans. Plus includes 100 customizations a year for personal use, and Pro includes 1,000 together with a commercial license to print and sell lamps worldwide.

The Studio also designs the Bloom lamp: read how it prints with almost no supports.