Edge-lit acrylic tutorial

I know edge-lit projects have come up on here quite a bit.

This tutorial walks through making a “Shard Light” with acrylic and LED strips. Seemed pretty complete and had an interesting method for attaching the veneer. Maybe it’s a normal technique, but I hadn’t heard of it before.

I could see all of the cuts being done with a laser, too.

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I kept waiting for him to say “If I only had a laser, this would have been much easier with a laser…”

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Very nice art. How about color changing LEDs by remote control. :grinning:

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I have the gear ready to go. One string of LEDs that would run of raspberry pi, the other a premade set. Kind of expensive to get the controller if you are just using three or six of the LEDs. But that’s ok.

It’s in the queue as sooon as I can get MakForge back in action.
https://www.amazon.com/LEDwholesalers-Color-Changing-2034RGB-R2-3369-3208/dp/B0040FJ27S

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Thanks for the link! I do a lot of playing with LEDs (you can just hear my wife’s heavy groan if you listen carefully). But I have yet to play with a Raspberry Pi. A real gap in my education. :blush: - Rich

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The RP is very versatile, and I have four of them from my teaching days. They are inexpensive. The cables and wifi plugin and other things for connectorizing with probably add up to the cost of the RP, $35-$39.

Arduino is another way to go.

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Hee, hee…thanks, those are on my Christmas list. I already bought a GF (and used up all my saved up husband points…yes guys they’re real!). You should see all the things I have to do and buy for her Christmas to make up some husband points. - Rich

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I have that same kit! I really need to get on that :flushed:

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Raspberry Pi zero is only like $5 and would be almost as useful as the larger version

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I have Arduino and an RGB LED strip (and other assorted goodies to go with it) ready to start experimenting with as well.

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Yes! I forgot all about that. Thanks.

I ended up purchasing some lights through eBay on here. Hindsight I would’ve purchased with the remote as well, but I ended up making my own circuit board that I can control the color with three variable resistors.

Edit: Hindsight I would purchased the remote AND power supply from them as I outsourced the power supply separately. Note the lead times are long having to come from the mainland!

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OK, that’s 4 bookmarks in one thread, so far. :sunglasses:

Man I’m losin’ it. Why didn’t that cross my mind? “Bah, I don’t need anything…”
:heart: Hey Sweetheart :two_hearts:… I jus thought of something.”

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Here’s my setup. It’s single color for under cabinet lighting when I do my kitchen, but you could snip it to any length and get a smaller power supply to fit whatever needs you have. Or, use a 12V wall wart like in the video.

From left to right: the power cord off the coffee maker my dad had for a couple of decades that died shortly after he did, a 120V to 12V 2A power supply, random red and black wires, a 12V dimmer, a 5 meter roll of warm white LEDs. All from aliexpress.com for around $12 (with appropriately sized wall clips that aren’t pictured.) It all screws together easily.

I’m going to clip off some of the end and use a couple of these:

for completing other LED projects. Maybe edge lit sign for in my car or a light inside of our medicine cabinet or something. They’re super cheap. And, I can have a strobe party in my medicine cabinet. Possibly bad idea, I suppose.

I’m going to cover the dimmer with something attractive made on my Glowforge.

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Here’s a video of Adafruit’s NeoPixel strip running a color swatch test pattern on Arduino. The strip is wrapped around a cast urethane ring I made.

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I went the cheaper route just to start out with, but the NeoPixel’s versatility and control is really what I need.

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Thanks! Resourceful! I would like to install a similar system in our kitchen.
My brother in law put a string under the kick panel just off the floor for night lighting.

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We did the under cabinet LED lighting with some strips just like those you show (we had 60 LEDs per meter). I installed the first one and tried it out. The boss (aka wife) and I decided to leave out the dimmers because we thought we would never want to dim them. I love the nice lighted counter tops. The cool part is I have leftovers and plenty of 12VDC wall warts to play with. - Rich

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Now that you mention it, my LED strip is Neopixels. I also ordered some individual neos.

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Here’s a couple NeoPixel rings with a Trinket (arduino compatible, $7 cost). Figured out how to write strobe patterns. :slight_smile:

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