Edge Lit Paint Fill

[Paul Bahlin]

I've been wanting to come up with a way to maintain high contrast in an edge lit sign when the light is off. I live in Florida so bright sun washes out plain engraving on acrylic. I also wanted a sign that could take being outdoors. Here's what I've come up with so far...

This is the sign lit and in the shade...
267-test-in-shade-lit.jpg

This is the sign lit and in the sun...
267-test-in-sun-lit.png

This is the sign not lit in the sun...

267-test-in-sun-not-lit.png

The pictures don't really reproduce what's going on very well. it was 4:00 PM on cloudless day in central Florida. Lots of sun!

I do all the work on the back with mirrored graphics. First I cover with transfer paper and leave the front covered with protective paper. Then I engrave the stroke at 100% speed and 25% power. Then I weed it. Then I etch the fill with 100% speed and 80% power. This is with a 45 watt FSL laser. Clean it up with a microfiber rag and water.

When it's dry I squeeged epoxy into the pattern with the transfer paper still on. The epoxy was tinted with white opaque pigment from Castin Craft ( three drops in 1/4 tsp of resin ). Waited about 4 hours for the epoxy to get gummy so it wouldn't flow anymore, then removed the rest of the transfer paper.

Finished product will take the rain. I'm guessing the epoxy has plenty of tooth in the etched pattern so it isn't going anywhere.

My fear going into this project was that the epoxy fill would make an optical 'connection' to the etch and eliminate or reduce the scatter you need to get light out of the sign. This does not appear to be an issue at all. The light just comes up, hits the etch and does it's thing like any normal edge lit sign but now the etching is backed with color.

I did this on some other quick attempts with various acrylic paints and they look pretty good too but they aren't opaque enough to prevent light bleeding out the back and any paint thickness variation shows up in daylight as hue variation in your pattern. My best one was with a 'gold' acrylic loaded with metallics. This exaggerated the etch lines and created a really nice glittering effect when lit but when it was turned off it was kind of dull and boring.

I thought I would share because I haven't seen this backfilling mentioned here on edge lit signs. What do you think?

[Paul Bahlin]

I forgot this picture of the sign indoors with no power...

267-test-indoors-unlit.jpg

[Keith Winter]

These all look beautiful Paul!

What are you using to light these? The only one that's hard to see is the non-lit one in the shade with the light background. Wonder if you added a dark colored backing to it (assuming it's mounted against a light colored wall) if that would improve the contrast in shaded applications?

[Keith Colson]

I do this a much simpler way but maybe your results are better, I don't know. I simply laser etch off the protecting paper in one go. Then I spray paint the etching. I then laser cut it out, then peel the protective coating. Its very fast to do. I like my spray paint custom mixed as some translucence is quite nice.

Cheers
Keith

[Paul Bahlin]

Here's the link to the lights.

I used to just go ahead and engrave away the transfer paper but this can often leave a ragged edge, at least on my laser. It seemed to depend on the angle of the pattern to the horizontal scan lines. Some angles made the effect worse than others. It also can leave adhesive residue in the pattern so now I engrave the stroke and weed, for clean edges every time and no junk in the etch to worry about.

I've done some samples with an overcoat on the entire back of some contrasting color and it works great as you say. My concern with this is that outdoors the paint may not last. I'd love to hear from people who have had luck with this outdoors. It also seems to be quite fragile and can come off with not much of a rub from anything.

The best thing for the back is another layer of acrylic. Something like bronze would be great. This about doubles material cost though so not good for low cost options.

[Michele Welch]

Paul, are these lights that you listed the link to any better than what you can get on Amazon for less than $10? I had some of the higher priced ones and they weren't any brighter than the less expensive ones. I want to give a quality product, but I also like my bottom line to be better as well. This light looks great though! I started with a FSL laser and it did great for me until I was able to upgrade to my Rabbit laser.

BTW, what part of Central Florida are you in? I'm from that area.

Michele

[Keith Winter]

Saw some row mark that looked like cooper and also bronze recently not sure on its outdoor properties but it might be something to ask a supplier about.

[Jeff Body]

I've been wanting to come up with a way to maintain high contrast in an edge lit sign when the light is off. I live in Florida so bright sun washes out plain engraving on acrylic. I also wanted a sign that could take being outdoors. Here's what I've come up with so far...

This is the sign lit and in the shade...
267-test-in-shade-lit.jpg

This is the sign lit and in the sun...
267-test-in-sun-lit.png

This is the sign not lit in the sun...

267-test-in-sun-not-lit.png

The pictures don't really reproduce what's going on very well. it was 4:00 PM on cloudless day in central Florida. Lots of sun!

I do all the work on the back with mirrored graphics. First I cover with transfer paper and leave the front covered with protective paper. Then I engrave the stroke at 100% speed and 25% power. Then I weed it. Then I etch the fill with 100% speed and 80% power. This is with a 45 watt FSL laser. Clean it up with a microfiber rag and water.

When it's dry I squeeged epoxy into the pattern with the transfer paper still on. The epoxy was tinted with white opaque pigment from Castin Craft ( three drops in 1/4 tsp of resin ). Waited about 4 hours for the epoxy to get gummy so it wouldn't flow anymore, then removed the rest of the transfer paper.

Finished product will take the rain. I'm guessing the epoxy has plenty of tooth in the etched pattern so it isn't going anywhere.

My fear going into this project was that the epoxy fill would make an optical 'connection' to the etch and eliminate or reduce the scatter you need to get light out of the sign. This does not appear to be an issue at all. The light just comes up, hits the etch and does it's thing like any normal edge lit sign but now the etching is backed with color.

I did this on some other quick attempts with various acrylic paints and they look pretty good too but they aren't opaque enough to prevent light bleeding out the back and any paint thickness variation shows up in daylight as hue variation in your pattern. My best one was with a 'gold' acrylic loaded with metallics. This exaggerated the etch lines and created a really nice glittering effect when lit but when it was turned off it was kind of dull and boring.

I thought I would share because I haven't seen this backfilling mentioned here on edge lit signs. What do you think?

Paul, are these lights that you listed the link to any better than what you can get on Amazon for less than $10? I had some of the higher priced ones and they weren't any brighter than the less expensive ones. I want to give a quality product, but I also like my bottom line to be better as well. This light looks great though! I started with a FSL laser and it did great for me until I was able to upgrade to my Rabbit laser.

BTW, what part of Central Florida are you in? I'm from that area.

Michele

I was going to ask the same thing....
I'm in the upper central FL area in Tavares.

I'd love to hear where you're getting some of your material from locally.
I got scammed on Amazon when I ordered some cast acrylic and got extruded.
I was just looking for distributors today.

Where are you 2 located?