Need advice, direction on making a custom LED lighted board.

[geocab]

Hello everyone,

Let me apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum to post this, I did an internet search about custom LED displays and this forum came up. This looks like what I need, but if not, sorry.

I was wondering if any of you would be able to explain how I could accomplish a project I want to work on, or point me in the right direction on where to get info for it.

This is what I'm planning to do, I want to use a 2' X 4' piece of
1/2" plywood and my plan is to make the border of the board light up
at night. To do this, I was thinking of taking a router and notch
maybe a 1/4" deep channel around the border of the board, drill some
holes spaced evenly thoughout the channel and stick some LEDs through
them. Then, I was hoping to pour some plastic resin to fill the
channel and make the board flat again. I've never done anything like
this, but I'm hoping that I can get some kind of frosted resin
that'll make the border look like it is one continuous light and not
show each individual LED location, if that makes any sense.

Do you know how I could accomplish this, wire the LEDs together, and
power them from a rechargeable battery source? I was thinking it'd
be nice to use the 18V rechargeable batteries used in my DeWalt
battery drill kit, but any batteries I could use would be fine as
long as the boards (two of them) could stay lit for many hours.

Also, the reason I'd like to notch in my own channels is so I could also make some custom designs to light up as well. Maybe something as basic as a "G" for my name, or something more complicated. I'll figure that part out when I figure out whether or not I can do this at all.

Any suggestions on how to accomplish this? The best place for materials, etc.?
I'd appreciate any help you could provide.

Thanks guys!
Geo

 

[XNOX_Rambo]

Re: Need advice, direction on making a custom LED lighted bo

Hi Geo,

How much light do you need?
If not too much the this could be a simple solution: **broken link removed**

/Ram

 

[geocab]

Re: Need advice, direction on making a custom LED lighted bo

Rambo,


Thanks for the link, that's an interesting product. I might have to buy a sample to see how bright it is. I'm leary of the brighter stuff because of the short lifetime, so I'd like to see how dim the lower lighting is. I really don't need it too bright, I just want to be able to see the boards at night when they're laying in the yard. But, I also would like these to last a long time which is why I was thinking LEDs, long lifetime, low power consumption.

I also need to see if I can encase this stuff in the resin because keeping the board surface flat is essential. I'll be sending them an e-mail to investigate this further.

Since I'm still way early in the planning stages, any other ideas are still welcome.
Thanks!
George

 

[XNOX_Rambo]

Re: Need advice, direction on making a custom LED lighted bo

Yes, lifetime of the Glowire is likely less than for a LED.

The problem with LEDs is that you'll need a heckuva lot of them to get a uniform light "bar".
If you make the groove as deep as possible you get away with less of them as the light cone will have spread more,
when it breaks the surface of the resin. You should pic a LED with the widest dispersion angle to reduce the number of LEDs needed.
I have tried to depict that in the attached picture. The grey is supposed to be the resin.

As you can see from the picture I haven't drilled holes for the LEDs as that would be a lot of work - they are just pushed into the groove.

/Ram

 

[geocab]

Re: Need advice, direction on making a custom LED lighted bo

I was over a friend's house yesterday and she had a night light which illustrates exactly the kind of light I have pictured in my head for this project. Forgive the picture quality as I only had my cell phone to take a photo with.





This is what I was thinking when I said I wanted a light bar, a nice solid glow throughout, enough to see the border of the board when it gets dark outside. Am I thinking along the correct lines to accoomplish this type of thing?

Or if the glowire is this bright even at the end of its life, that still may be the ticket, for the border at least. I'll try to draw up a mock version of what design I was thinking too.

Oh, and I was thinking about drilling holes through the board because I thought I'd have to wire the LEDs from underneath, didn't even think I could wire them in the channel itself. This would be a better scenario for me.

As you can tell, I've a bit to learn before I get started on this.

Thanks for your continued help.

Added after 8 minutes:



This is the mock-up of the board which will be 2' X 4'. The circle will surround a 6" diameter hole.

I don't know Photoshop well enough to draw a better photo so I hope this suffices.

 

[XNOX_Rambo]

Re: Need advice, direction on making a custom LED lighted bo

I see now that Glowire have specified the lifetime at different frequencies - and less is more: **broken link removed**

In principle you could hook up the Glowire to the mains - if you live in the US and run it on 120 VAC/60 Hz -
but I don't recommend it from a safety point of view. There is a risk of electrocution or fire in such an outdoor installation.

As for drawing stuff I use the amazing Xara Xtreme Pro which gives a lot of bang for the buck: https://www.xara.com/us/

/Ram