If you’ve gone to the trouble of building your own CNC mill we know you’re always on the lookout for things to use it for. [Boris Landoni] wrote in with just the thing for the holiday season; a set of lighted acrylic Christmas ornaments.
One of the interesting properties of acrylic is how it reacts when edge-lit. The material pipes the light, until it bounces off of a disturbance in the surface. The first step is to design the outline of the ornament as all cut edges will glow. Next, [Boris] uses artCAM to design the internal parts to be cut. This application translates the relief cuts necessary to really make your design shine (sorry, we couldn’t resist). The best examples of this are the angel and candle seen above.
Each of these acrylic pieces has a slot cut on the bottom to hug an LED. [Boris] used small project boxes with a PCB for that diode, as well as a button battery for power.
These are very nice. Wish I had a cnc.
I’ve got a hand-cut acrylic star with a blinkm on the top of the tree, with a wall wart hidden beside the trunk. Very cool, but prone to scratching, so it has to be stored gently. Those scratches light up too.
What a great idea. I must fire up the CNC Mill and give it a go.
What about using old CDs instead of acrylic?
I’m trying to do something similar but having some issues cutting the CDs smoothly.
A nice practical use for a home CNC mill. HE could probably make the money spent on it by selling those things on etsy
Nice. I was thinking about that but had not delivered. It is good to know that it’s very possible.
i think you mean lit instead of lighted. and i’m note even a native speaker of english!