Edgelit sign

[Peter Boyford]

Just for shows... I made this as an example for a customer. Turned out, he wanted to pay me to make the sign for a trade show

I made the complete thing on the laser - both the base and the sign. Here's how:

* I used 6mm clear acrylic for all. The base consists of 3 layers glued together and coverd in matte black vinyl film.

* The bottom layer of the base is 50x500mm.

* The middle layer is made out of 2 pcs. of 19x500mm aigned to each edge of the bottom layer leaving 12mm gap in the center.

* The top layer is 22x500mm leaving a gap of 6mm (Yes! You guessed it! To make room for the sign!).

* The sign itself is 80x500mm engraved in vectors. I engraved in two passes, each pass slightly smaller than the previous. I did this in Corel Draw by making an inside contour of 0,1mm.

* The 12mm gap is for a light strip (diodes in this case).

* Cover the base in vinyl, put white or reflective vinyl around the top and sides of the sign, insert the sign and turn on power

I know, that the sign could need some cleaning, but it shows the sign in all of its awe anyway... Notice how clear and bright the sign is, even in daylight!

Best Regards
Peter

[Frank Corker]

Peter - looks brilliant

[Joe Pelonio]

Yes, well done. A few questions though. I have done some panels to be edgelit for cars, and I always engraved (rastor). The installers would put black behind it and they looked great. Without the black, is vector the only way to make the image show up well?

Also, do you think that using mirror poly film around the edges would help by bouncing the light back, instead of the white vinyl?

[Glenn Corser]

Peter,

Looks great. What did you use for a light source? Has anyone messed around with EL wire? You can see it at www.vibelights.com - I got a test pack and it is pretty bright and is cool to the touch.

[AL Ursich]

Excellent project !!!

AL

[Peter Boyford]

Thanks all for the recognition


Glenn-> I used some flex light strips from ATG Electronics (website seems to be currently down...) It's an adhesive strip with SMD diodes on it. Very bright. Not extremely expensive. Uses 12V.

Joe-> Yes, poly mirror will do great! For my project, though, it would look cheesy :P Some technical stuff below:

When you're doing edgelit signs, light enters from one edge and then reflects inside the clear acrylic. But it only does this at angles below a certain degree. If the angle is too steep, the light will not bounce the surface, but escape.

Therefore you need diodes that are 45 degrees or less. And therefore you get bette visibility, the deeper the engraving is. Everytime the light hits a dent in the acrylic surface, the light escapes. The more light that ecapes, the less light remains to illumunate the rest of the sign.

Rule of thumb is: ths thicker the acrylic, the more room for reflecting light. If you picture yourself that you have a completely engraved surface, you wouldnt get any light effect at all. This is also why it's not good to engrave large areas away. You loose too much light.

The reason you get better visibility with black backing is, that you actually just get higher contrast.

Try to engrave deeper. Or try to engrave only every second line of your letters, leaving vertical unengraved areas within the letters. Would look cool, also

best regards
Peter