Make small acrylic? window in fascia to be lit by LED

[sthcoaster]

Evening all

Want to place an on/off led in the front of a wooden enclosure but want it behind a small window of coloured acrylic (it will possibly not be a simple shape like a hole). Is there a way to melt & pour acrylic? to form a transparent a window?

Had a good search through the construction forum using a variety of search terms to find this info because I am sure there is a thread about it - but no luck in finding it. Any help directly is very welcome or if you know a thread that might already have some suggestions/answers please let me know.

Thanks

Clayton

 

[BillWojo]

Make a mask and use it in front of the acrylic plastic. The mask can be any kind of opaque material. Back light it and it should look good.

BillWojo

 

[prairiemystic]

I'm not sure if you are doing a cutout in the wood for a flush front?

With SMT LED's it's possible to just bring wires through a tiny hole in the wooden front panel. So now the LED is outside and then countersink it underneath the acrylic part, to back light it.
Or have the LED edge light the acrylic panel (mounted on top of the wood front). Laser-etched/cut acrylic is popular and less hassle than pouring resin.
It is possible to make a light-pipe with resin but I'm not sure what size has to be lit up.
If you Google "led backlit acrylic sign" you can see (large scale) some ideas.

Edge Lit Acrylic Sign
LED Resin Cube

 

[Calvin]

Hi,

Mentor is spezialised on light guides of the different kinds.
You can download the PDF-catalog, section LL here, see page 8 and following.
A not overly different DIY-alternative would be to use small pieces of light fibre.
When I built my first Calvin Pre I needed a lighting solution for the slate frontplate.
Fortunately slate could be easily drilled as long as the drill was of very small diameter (~1mm).
So I drilled those holes, cut small lengths off of the fibre and fitted it in the holes and glued LEDs to their inner ends ... a piece of heatshrink tubing will do the job also.
When not lit, the tiny fibres could hardly be seen at all... when lit the smallness of the light-dot looks quite elegant .. see pic.

jauu
Calvin

 

[sthcoaster]

Thanks BillMojo, Prairiemystic

I think Calvin best understands my poor description of what I am wanting to achieve.

There will not be any other acrylic on the fascia - no acrylic panel to mask and backlight etc. just some smallish holes/carving in the wood which I want to fill with a transparent material which will be backlit and these will be flush with the surface of the wood

I will look at this light fibre idea and do a few experiments of my own. The smallest diameter acrylic coloured rod appears to be 2mm so I could just drill a 2mm hole to use a length of rod as an inlay.

I'll keep looking

Cheers

 

[sthcoaster]

Casting Resin

Looks like casting resin used in jewellery etc might be the thing - problem is I need so little of it for my project!! Actually I might know someone!

 

[sthcoaster]

something like this

PEBEO GEDEO COLOUR & CRYSTAL RESIN DISCOVERY SET- IMITATES GLASS PASTE | eBay

there are cheaper alternatives but this is an example

 

[Calvin]

Hi,

sthcoaster, the fibre does not need to be coloured ... just choose the desired color of the LED. In fact I´m not sure if a coloured fibre would be sufficiently translucent and it will change the LED-light spectrum.
Otpical fibres like MIKROE-1471 available from mouser will do a goob job.
They just transport the light unaltered in colour an intensity to the front.
Due to their flexibility the LED can be mounted almost be anywhere in the casing.
You could also try to modify a TOSLINK transmitter with an LED of Your choice and cut the optical cable to length.
Would give You a ´professional´ touch and a very practical connector/plug mounting solution

jauu
Calvin

 

[sthcoaster]

Hi,

sthcoaster, the fibre does not need to be coloured ... just choose the desired color of the LED. In fact I´m not sure if a coloured fibre would be sufficiently translucent and it will change the LED-light spectrum.
Otpical fibres like MIKROE-1471 available from mouser will do a goob job.
They just transport the light unaltered in colour an intensity to the front.
Due to their flexibility the LED can be mounted almost be anywhere in the casing.
You could also try to modify a TOSLINK transmitter with an LED of Your choice and cut the optical cable to length.
Would give You a ´professional´ touch and a very practical connector/plug mounting solution

jauu
Calvin

Thanks Calvin

I just closed off a Mouser order to make the minimum before delivery, still can see that this is available elsewhere. This train of thought is giving me different ideas and it will be <£2 whereas the resin will be a minimum of £10-12. And as you say should look quite professional

Standby

Claytin

 

[phase]

Have done that with cheap two-part epoxy before, the slightly blue light source went well with the amber epoxy.

 

[tomchr]

There will not be any other acrylic on the fascia - no acrylic panel to mask and backlight etc. just some smallish holes/carving in the wood which I want to fill with a transparent material which will be backlit and these will be flush with the surface of the wood

What you need is a light pipe. They're available commercially (Digiey, et al.) They're often used with SMD LEDs. A piece of acrylic rod would do the same job. I bet it'd look really nice if you polished the end of the rod.

Tom