Sometimes, you see a project that isn’t a technical powerhouse but just looks so good you can’t help but think about duplicating it. That’s how we felt with the mini-neon signs made by [makerverse]. From an electronics point of view, it is just some filament LEDs and a 3D-printed casing. But, as you’ll see in the video below, these look like little miniature neon signs, and they look great.
Although we might use a different set of tools to get there, the idea is to create your text in DXF, extrude it in CAD, and then print a dark shell with a light or translucent center using a filament change. Glow-in-the-dark filament is also an option. Obviously, if you are handy in any CAD tool, you could easily pull this off.
After printing, you simply put your LED lighting in the center, and there you go. Sure, there’s no high voltage or neon involved, but it is a cute, fun 3D-printing project.
We’ve seen this trick before, but the contrasting 3D printing really sells it. You can also take a peek at how a pro shop in Korea does it.
Theres also el wire which is closer to neon
Needs 300 volts
But doesn’t need a neon transformer and 20 – 50kv
But EL wire is not nearly as luminous as these LEDs.
EL wire transformers also in my experience always make a hideous buzzing sound.
It’s a little sad that most of this video is just how to model the text in detail, and then the actual meat of the project (swap colors while printing and using filamented LEDs) is a quick 30 seconds at the end, and not even finished. More 3V mounting/wiring options, more enclosure ideas, make it seem like you spent all that modeling on a complete project.
I think a lot was crammed into this 7.5 minute video. I learned a few things.
Strong disagree. The CAD parts are probably the most difficult part for the average maker these days, and he did a great job explaining through it.
Everyone has a printer and knows how to print out Yoda Heads. Designing your own Yoda Head is the next step…
Cool to see those filaments available in 3V — I’d only ever seen them before in the line-powered 100V versions, which would make this project a little sketchy.
Browsing through Ali I see there are super-narrow 12V strips available too, and in much longer lengths.
Custom Mini- Indium Gallium Nitride Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol Signs In 10+ Days
That’s easy for you to say.
Nice project/idea.
Hmm… I guess just printing the black outer casing, putting in the filament LED and then a clean layer of hot glue would work too. Maybe with some cleanup with a hot air gun.
-> use a router to cut int black plastic sheet (what’s the name/type of this plastic stuff that’s often used in wood workshops too?) and use that.
Hot glue for a diffuser/lens, nice hack!
I frequently use hot glue as a diffuser for things like surface-mount indicator LEDs: Drill a hole in an enclosure over where the LED is. Tape over the hole on the outside, using ordinary mylar “invisible” scotch-like tape, and fill in the hole from behind with hot glue. Wait to cool, remove tape, done.
It leaves a nice smooth, flush LED indicator, no trimming, smoothing or other rework needed.
Other tapes don’t work well: masking tape leaves a texture, aluminum tape sticks too well and rips, vinyl ‘electrical’ tape melts and sticks to the hot glue and comes apart. The inexpensive ‘invisible mending’ mylar type works great.
Thanks!
Yeah, accidentally “discovered” that myself ~10-15 years ago when I found a working SnakeByte PS4 RF controller with a mechanically broken receiver in an electronics trash container.
When putting the receiver back together the original plastic shell had quite a large hole where an LED view window used to be.
Was surprised how well the hot glue on Tesatape (=Sellotape) worked out and looked.
Hot glue is very good for this. Better/stronger is epoxy with something mixed in to milk it up — I use microballoons b/c I have them on hand.
But the technique — drill hole, tape it up, fill it, is the same. And it’s a great one.
Now I HaD (pun intended) to look that up!
B^)
https://www.christinedemerchant.com/filler-micro-balloons.html
It’s kind of weirdly pitched for an audience who have a 3D printer, but don’t know how to extrude text in 3D, but are capable of learning how to use CAD from a couple of minutes’ explanation. So… no one?
However, I did find this useful because (a) it somehow never occurred to me to just switch filament colors at a given layer (!), and (b) I wasn’t aware of these filament LEDs.
I have a 3D printer and learned some new tools from the openSCAD i usually use, great explainer for me. It’s a great tutorial.
Another neat 3d printed lighting thing I did a while back. A replacement for ceiling fan glass:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3309056
Turned out that “clear” filament with the irregular surface produced by FDM can make something that looks quite similar to frosted glass.
The “shades” are holding up well to any heat generated by the bulbs?
It is bad enough when people try and pass off non neon as neon for marketing. You guys should know better though. If your neon has no neon, you probably should not call it neon. Neon like perhaps.
Most neon isn’t neon anyway.
I get your point, but it looks neon-like, close enough that you could make that dollhouse stripper club you always wanted.
No real need to keep calling it ‘neon’ at a time where many people haven’t even ever seen a neon sign in their lifetime (but those that did don’t think this compares to neon).
Isn’t there an official name for that LED band that we can use? It’s fine and nice enough but we seem to keep trying to link things to old things for no reason and then rile up people.
Seems they often use ‘side-emitting LED ‘neon’ rope light’
So SELRL then? Wait no then people will say SELRL light, so drop the last L and make it SELR light perhaps, although I would use band rather than rope since it’s a flat squarish thing, so I’d go for ‘SELB’.
There must be an official name though you would think.