Light-Up LED Lab Sign

The Light-Up LED Lab sign was created as an aesthetic piece to put into our newly renovated LED Lab office space. The idea for this project was to also be a functioning clock but design difficulties turned this project into becoming an aesthetic piece.

Acrylic

Wood

Electric Saw and Drill (Woodshop tools)

Laser Printer

LED Light Strip

Laptop

Circuit Playground

Battery Pack

(3) Triple AAA batteries

Loose wires

Soldering Iron

Before beginning my project, I created two blueprints of what my proposed idea would be and could potentially look like. Originally my idea included having a clock function, but after some design challenges (such as there were too many pins for the LED display I would have used to connect to the circuit playground and also connect the LED light strip to it) my project changed from being a light up sign and clock to simply a lovely light up sign.

After creating my blueprints and establishing what materials I will be using, I utilized the woodshop area at the Makerspace and was able to cut out the base for my project, which is a wood block. I had a long plank of wood and cut the wood down with an electric saw to the size I would need for my project. I cut the block down to a size of approximately 6" length, 2.5" height, and a width of approximately 1.5". With the help of one of the "woodmasters", John, down at the makerspace, he was able to assist with making an incision/insertion so that the acrylic, along with the LED strip at the base, can be placed into the wood block. I was able to drill a whole in the side of the block so that the LED light strip could be placed into the base of the block.

After I completed work on the wood base, I went on to preparing to create the aesthetic piece for my project, the LED Lab sign design on the clear acrylic. Clear acrylic was chosen so that the colors from the LED light strip would show vividly through it. I created the design myself using the application Inkscape (software that the laser printer being used acknowledged), which is free to download onto your device and got the image used in the design for free online. I programmed the laser cutter to cut out the acrylic and then etch on the design.

Once I created the physical aesthetic aspects for my project, I then moved on to programming the circuit playground and LED light strip. I used Microsoft Makecode for Circuit Playground Express application to program my LED light strip so that it would be on a timer to shut off for five seconds, turn on for five seconds in some color, and then repeat these steps for different colors. I programmed the circuit playground to display the colors blue, yellow, red, and green on the LED light strip. The pins on the circuit playground that were used were A1, GND, and VOUT and the wires were connected the the LED light strip to Din, GND, and +5V, respectively.

Once programming was complete for the circuit playground and it functioned exactly how I wanted it to, I was then able to go onto soldering the wires together to connect the circuit playground and the LED light strip.

Once soldering was complete, it was time to add on the finishing touches to my project. I attached the circuit playground and battery pack to the back of the wood block using Velcro stickers. For extra security placement, I used a hot glue gun to attach the Velcro sticker to the wood block. Once this was complete, I turned on the battery pack and my project was successfully completed!