I got this logo tweaked to work with the LED Neon, https://amzn.to/3BQpbxd. It looks great in person, might even be too bright, not sure how to dim it yet.
Made a test part to get the depth right and to see if the lengths will work since you need to cut it every 3 LED’s, it seems there is about a 6mm zone you can cut in so I think I can make it work with all the small letters. In real life you can’t really see the LED hotspots.
I have a question, I am cutting it with a 1/8" wood face, and HD foam for some thickness. What should I do with the wood face, clear poly is kinda everywhere in my shop, maybe a whitewash, or just a black or gray paint?
I’d try a silver but I can’t make up my mind whether it should be dark or light- Black will be very harsh, unless you really want to preserve the wood grain - in which case a black stain rather than paint.
I am pretty sure I will punch holes manually. You can’t see them and I am not sure where the best place will be yet.
I’ll try a gloss gray for on the wood to see how it looks. That kinda matches the site color scheme and the show stuff I have so I guess that is a good place to start. If it’s a bummer I can redo it. Fingers crossed I can make some cuts today.
Well I glued up my fake SIP panel and carefully placed it in the CNC with only a few mm’s to spare on the X axis.
Had a game plan for work holding since it was cutting all sides.
Hit go and within 30 seconds realized after I aligned it I forgot to move it over 10mm.
So I am going to let the 1:30 job run. See what else I learn. If nothing else at least I can give it a paint job and make one letter to see how it looks.
Bummer. Largest cut for me and I screwed up that fast.
It is okay, kinda glad. The touchplate clamp moved and made it get squeezed and skip a step. Shot some spray paint on it and it’s melting the foam. Pushed in some LED’s and heard a crack, killed a section.
The flat would reflect more, because it diffuses the light in every direction the gloss only reflects in one. So there might be an angle where the gloss reflects. But you would get the bloom reflection at every angle with flat.
But honestly, you probably won’t notice the finish because the leds will be so bright. So probably not a big deal.
You could put something like this if you are concerned about them being too bright. I haven’t made a neon sign yet but I do have some strips to try one out eventually. Yours looks amazing!!!
That is slick! I ended up getting some color changing ones with a brightness control. I did not want to dd the two extra wires, that is going to be a lot of soldering.
Cut and solder. The sections are a little over an inch per each cut zone. I think I can make that work by stuffing or stretching a bit, and creative overlapping of the strips without the rubber diffuser. I would rather have a brighter joint than a gap in the neon if possible. Neon is okay to have some little gaps though.
I think this is where it stands. I might do a few tests real quick but the store only had a color Liked in semi gloss so right in the middle.
