I bought a Harbor Freight sharpener, that I think has a buffing wheel on it, I will check.

Have you tried flame polishing? Oxy-acetylene works best with a size 000 tip. A heat gun will work in a pinch. I've got one of those ready made adapters that takes the nozzle size down to a half inch, and then I add an extra little aluminum foil reducing cone.

The torch is best and fastest, but it takes fast hands and some practice.

Will you be driving the chain of strips in series or parallel?

-Jim Hart

Thanks for the input,

I have not tried flame polishing, that sounds interesting. Wiring and control wise, it depends on the power supply, but I imagined two parrallel buses, one for each letter set.

Pete

I was given a demonstration of the heat/flame method years ago when I was working with Aquariums and a local builder wanted to push his custom builds. He was well practiced and it looked great. But you could tell he had done it more than a couple times.

When we cut, we should have some leftover strips, we should practice on those.

He also had a form/jig of some sort he used, I will go online and see if I can find something like that, maybe we can simplify it with this.

I'd like to help with this. I will likely be at H.F. this evening and probably Sat. or Sun. too.

I was at the HF for awhile this evening, Wayne if you made it I missed you. I spoke with Jude and we altered / refined the plans a bit. The latest is to put the HACK FACTORY sign in the channel of the door overhang. this makes this part much smaller, and we already have enough LEDs for at least the HACK FACTORY part.

I'm not sure if we'll do tcmaker.org in combination with it or not. The tall letters for Twin Cities Maker, may go on the roof over the door. I'm unclear on that part,

So power and control stuff is still required. Buffing or flame polishing will still be needed. We may use single (I have some somewhere) or double AL C channel, and we'll be starting a bit smaller.

I got the plex cut and the new text setup as g-code, but then I had to go.
It should look something like this, the letters being 3.5" tall. I think John may be mocking the door area up.



Pete

Jude had mentioned this when we were talking, and I think this is the perfect use of that channel on the front.

Before you get two far into mounting it, I have two enhancements or ideas.
First is there room for a second set of LED's, maybe another color?
I have not seen the acrylic yet, but the channel looked to be 1/2 to 3/4 inch deep.

Second is the rest of the sign, and I am just tossing this out there.
I drove past the Guthrie on the way home Wednesday night, and after looking at the overhang that we have, I think we should look at a tower (up with the small trees on the top) that has scrolling text like "www.tcmaker.org, and Open House Tonight"

It would be similar to the Marquee at the Guthrie, but just tall enough to be seen (maybe even two sides?)
Just a thought,

The LED strip and the plex are a good match thickness wise. We could try another color from the bottom. Axman only carries red for the strips though.



Sorry, I started this on my phone and couldn't get to the end to answer. I think for edge lit stuff, at least for now I want to keep it pretty simple. I know there is still interest in a large scale sign board / tetris / do what you will with big glass block size pixels, so I think I leave the animated signage for that. I agree a programmable animated sign is a great thing to have, I just don't think this is the best medium for that.

Pete

So, closer, but still not there.

I messed up the routing on this, you'll see a divet taken out of the "H" and I realized I forgot to cut the plex big enough to to allow for the channel and LEDs on one side. So back to cutting a strip out, but you can get an idea of what it should look like. The LEDs themselves will be shielded of course so there will be a lot less light bleed.

But aside from all the operator error, it's looking pretty good, the V bit makes nice faceted looking letters.

Pete

This is going to be sooooo coooooool.