Introduction
My project14 idea for the Build a Present contest is to make a transparent music box made of plexiglass and light it up using RGB LEDs. I'm using plexiglass for two reasons- First because it is transparent in nature. Second, a single LED can be used to light up the entire sheet of plexiglass this will reduce the power requirement and the project can be powered using a battery.
The idea is to use a single SMD RGB LED on one of the edges of the plexiglass sheet and engrave a message on the sheet. The SMD RGB LED is interfaced with an Arduino (Arduino UNO in my case as I don't have a smaller form factor Arduino) so that the R,G,B can be combined to obtain different colors. Also effects such as blink and fading can be added to the LED. I have run some initial tests with the plexiglass sheet and SMD RGB LED from muticomp.
Parts Used
Arduino UNO x 1
Transparent Plexiglass sheets of 2 inch thickness x 4
MP001251 SMD RGB LED x 1
Piezo buzzer x 1 (later part for adding music)
Initial Tests
For the initial tests, I interfaced the RGB LED with Arduino UNO and pasted the LED onto one of the edges of the plexiglass sheet.
The results are shown below
In the next blog, I will engrave a message on the plexiglass sheet and add effects to the LEDs along with some holiday music which can played using the piezo buzzer.
EDIT: Some last-minute changes. I won't be engraving the plexiglass sheet. Instead, I'm going to use RGB LEDs. Will post a blog soon with the update.