Interactive LED- iLED 2.0
Well unfortunately my last version of the iLED project deteriorated into a giant mess and I eventually had to throw it away. After setting the circuit board aside for a couple weeks I came back to a corroded mess. Apparently any little bit of moisture that comes into contact with the copper strips will cause them to corrode and fall apart. Shitty.
There is some good news however. I completely redesigned the circuit and came up with something that is not only structurally and electrically superior, it’s also much prettier on the eyes!
Basically the idea was to get rid of the copper tape and make the entire piece out of 1/4″ sheets of tinted plexi-glass and 1/4″ square bar. Because of the nature of the materials used I had to design this in three sections, or slices, that when combined would bridge all the necessary connections. I started by modeling the entire piece is Solidworks.
After I had completed the 3D model and verified all the contacts were in the right place it was time to prep for production. I had been planning on getting the three pieces of plexi laser-cut and in order for the laser cutter to be able to properly plot the lines I had to convert my 3D model into 3 separate vector graphics.
The cuts in the top layer would house the “limbs” that the LEDs would sit on. One of the conveniences of this design over the previous version is that the “Limbs” are not only great conductors of electricity but they’re also magnetic. This means the LEDs will only want to stick to the parts they’re supposed to and avoid scratching up the Plexi with their tiny magnets. Yay!
The second slice of Plexi would be a simple cut that would house the vertical “Trunks” that would supply electricity to the Limbs in the top slice.
The bottom slice would have cuts made to house the electrical wiring from the transformer. This last slice wasn’t really necessary but I figured it would add rigidity to the piece and would also hide the wiring so that it could lay flat on it’s back or against a wall.
The next step was to buy the actual plexi. I made a trip to Albuquerque to visit The Plastic Supply Company. They were super nice and cut me three pieces of tinted 1/4″ 11×17 plexi in just a few minutes and for only 14 bucks! Not bad!
With the plexi in hand and and the vector files on my laptop I headed over to Arroyo Studios to get the plexi cut. The cutting process went a lot faster than I thought it would. It took a little while to get the vector paths all sorted out, but once that was done the cutting process only took about 15-20 minutes. Everything seemed to have gone perfectly untill we pulled the plexi out of the machine. Apparently the laser hadn’t been properly aligned so it ended up not cutting all the way through some parts of the plexi.
As you can see some of the cuts didn’t make it all the way through the 1/4″ thick plexi, and we had to call it a night at that point. I tried to finish off the cuts using my dremel and a cutting wheel but I ended up making it even worse.
Thats ok though, I’ll just toss this piece out and chalk it up to experience. I have since heard form Matt and Andrew at Arroyo Studios. They’ve re-aligned the laser and even purchased a new focusing lens, so 1/4″ plexi shouldn’t be a problem to cut anymore. I’m looking forward to going back to have another shot at the cutting process.
So thats where I’m at with this project. Check back for updates!
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