Mac-Lamp
At a Glance
I've always loved the colorful, translucent look of old Apple products, and wanted to capture some of that magic myself — while finally trying my hand at 3D printing. Mac-Lamp is a desk lamp built around the salvaged shell of an old, broken MacBook: a 3D-printed housing in transparent orange PLA glows through the trackpad and the Apple logo, just like those old devices used to, and the trackpad itself doubles as the on/off switch.
Process
1Modeled Around Real Hardware
Every part was modeled in Blender to the exact dimensions of the MacBook.
Printed to Glow
For the 3D print I used a translucent PLA filament at 20% infill, to let as much light through as possible.
Cut From the Original Shell
The salvaged MacBook's own aluminium shell was cut down on a bandsaw — reusing the real hardware rather than just referencing its look was the whole point.
Sanded Flush by Hand
Every cut edge was sanded smooth by hand, so the reused aluminium sits flush against the printed housing instead of looking bolted on.
Final result
2The finished lamp does what I set out to do: the trackpad clicks on and off like a real button, and once it's lit, the trackpad and the Apple logo glow through the orange housing the same way the display and logo used to on the machine it came from. It's less a tribute to one specific MacBook than to a whole era of translucent, colorful Apple hardware I grew up loving.