RE: Edge Lit signs

makerkaren — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 19:38:20 GMT

Hehe. You beat me to the punch. If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check out this week'sThe Learning Circuit 09: Edge Lit Signs.

RE: Edge Lit signs

the-dubster — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 19:20:55 GMT

Nice effort Mark.

Something I considered doing many years ago was etching a full set of automotive gauges into acrylic and edge lighting those - it was inspired by the Porsche Boxster Concept which had a full LCD instrument cluster for the needles with etched legends on the glass.

I can't find a picture that does it justice but I know you'll get the idea.

Now I've moved to the concept of using neopixels to coordinate all internal vehicle lighting AND, for the rev counter, an additional colour change to indicate approaching / hitting the rev limit (change from selected colour to amber then red, unless the dash IS red - then maybe it'll flash)!!

This will essentially use edge illumination too but I've yet to work out the finer details . . . . . . can you tell? [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-87bea283-7178-4063-a0ba-4e8d32fb663f/contentimage_5F00_3.png:16:16]

For the etching I have a 'Silhouette' (or Graphtec Craft Robo) X/Y cutter in bits (I owe the wife a new one)!

If I replace the cutting blade with a rotating etching tool . . . . . . . . .

The software already exists (and I have it), you can set the design, tool paths are calculated AND, the cutting head lifts between cuts (handy that).

The only real issues are:

Power behind the steppers (they sometimes skip on thick card - but if I use several passes at a moderate pressure it may work - double cut is an existing feature of the software).

Belts - they're not really that thick compared to my 3D printer - so that may be why it skips . . .

The cut material feed - it's designed to drive paper, card and vinyl back and forth (Y axis) whilst the blade sweeps left and right (X axis). It uses rubber rollers and only supports the material at the cut point, that may be an issue with 5mm thick acrylic!

Buffering - a known issue is the cutter occasionally pauses as it gets a bit 'full' in its buffer as it prints over USB (there's a setting to help here - but it just reduces how often it happens).

With a cutting blade, the buffering pause is not an issue, it just pauses a while (up to 1 minute at worst - complex cutting paths cause it more often) - with a spinning etcher whirling against acrylic that's potentially gonna cause a damned deep cut or a bit of 'plastic melty-age'.

Neither of these are a great thing.

Maybe you've just convinced me to make a dinky CNC mill . . . . . DAMN!! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-87bea283-7178-4063-a0ba-4e8d32fb663f/contentimage_5F00_403.png:16:16]

So many projects, so little likelihood of finishing them! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-87bea283-7178-4063-a0ba-4e8d32fb663f/contentimage_5F00_2516.png:16:16]

RE: Edge Lit signs

mcb1 — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 08:05:25 GMT

Video is up.

Camera still doesn't do it justice.

Mark

RE: Edge Lit signs

mcb1 — Sat, 07 Apr 2018 12:50:39 GMT

Thanks for all the comments.

I'm trying to do a video and for the life of me I can't set the video mode to stay fixed ... it wants to change according to the brightness.

To add to that my GoPro didn't want to connect to the phone either ... and I can't remember the password I used ...

Mark

RE: Edge Lit signs

three-phase — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 19:19:19 GMT

Interesting project, I haven't seen an edge lighting system being put together before.

Thanks for posting.

Kind regards

RE: Edge Lit signs

genebren — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 16:15:45 GMT

Mark,

This is very cool. I have always been fascinated with the LED edge lighting concepts. I too played around with these concepts back before small surface mount component. I really liked your build, as this gives me some new ideas for some other lighting projects (back lighting some art, tiny wall wash sconces).

Thanks for sharing!

Gene

RE: Edge Lit signs

fmilburn — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 15:59:38 GMT

Really nice, thanks for posting...