Inspiration
We had recently completed some garage storage renovations and I felt like a Neon sign was needed to commemorate the completion. I fell in love with the Casino style glittering text and Neon artwork and thought it would be perfect!
The Concept
After some discussion we settled on calling the garage The Toolbox.
Some brief sketching in Inkscape and a 2D mock up was created! The border and THE are to be in LED Neon tubing and the letter infill will be individually addressable LEDs controlled with an ESP microcontroller and WLED firmware.
From 2D to 3D
After the Inkscape mockup, the vector images where brought into Fusion360 and 3D modeling of all the channel letters and neon tube channels can begin.
Light framing
To support and shape the LED Neon tubing, a channel was created and 3D printed that was then screwed into an acrylic plate for support. The LED tube is then pressed into the channel. To fit this on my 3D printer, the neon channels had to be broken up.
The block letters are hollow shapes with front frames that lock the LED boards in place. Holes have been located for wiring and bolting to the 2020 extrusion frame.
Support Framing
2020 and 2040 extrusion was used to support everything. It's really easy to work with and makes great custom frameworks. Here it's modeled so that the holes can be placed into the block letters, the acrylic plate, and the border channel.
Finally, a full 3D render
If all goes to plan, this is what we are shooting to create! The power supply is going to be hidden(ish) behind the B and O.
Some not-so-quick CAD work
Setting the LED layout in CAD. We'll deal with the pins later.
After all LEDS are located, we can get to putting in holes for the pins. This was tricky due to the layout of the pins on the LEDS.
The Build
Because I am not great at recording the build of my projects this is a showcase, not a tutorial. Here are some photos of the build process but it generally went like this:
3D print the LED channel and letters, power supply housing, and ESP housing and laser cut the acrylic.
Mill the LED boards and ESP board on a desktop CNC machine.
optional: paint the new CNC machine to match the rest of the Ryobi power tools.
Push 5mm LEDs through the milled lead holes and solder together, bending pins as necessary to make the positives, negatives, and data pins create the circuit.
Install 5v to 12v step up converter to power the white strip.
Fasten 3D printed parts to the extrusion frame work.
Install WLED on ESP microcontroller.
Install ESP onto ESP board and wire data lines from each letter to the ESP.
Power on!
Troubleshoot
Repeat several times because the circuitry is "of questionable construction"
Re-address each LED so that animations run smoother.
The LEDs are the standard 5mm form factor and have the controller integrated into the package. They were connected up by soldering the the DataIN to the DataOUT and bending the positiv and negative leads up/down to create power rails. The rails where tied together with jumpers. Things got tricky where the pattern changed around bends in the O and B and the legs of the X
Testing as we go along. Here you can see the lead holes that were milled.
Further testing as more letters are complete. LED Neon starting to get installed.
Almost done! Placed in its new home amogst other sign projects waiting for the final run of LED Neon tubing.
Optional step: Paint CNC to match the rest of the tools.
For those looking to match accessories to the Ryobi ecosystem, Key Lime by Rust-Oleum is a great match!
All done!
Here it is with a few animations and some cheesy glamor shots!