Hi welcome to Techydiy. I'm Nigel and
today i'm going to make an acrylic
edge lit lamp using LEDs to light the sides.
The lamp consists of two cutouts that slot
together and then into a wooden base,
which also has a glowing acrylic layer.
So let's have a look at some of the parts.
First of all a six millimeter or
quarter-inch-thick clear acrylic sheet,
some square planed wood, 5 x blue leds
and 4 x white leds, 3 x 220 ohm resistors,
some wire, DC power connector and to cut
the acrylic sheet, I fitted a jigsaw with a
Bosch T101a blade, which is designed for
cutting polycarbonate and acrylic. For the links
to the plans, parts and tools have a look
in the video description or you can go
directly to the TECHYDIY.ORG website.
The design was created using google
sketchup, along with two templates, which
were printed out and glued to the
acrylic sheet as a cutting guide.
I used water-soluble glue, so that the
templates could be easily washed off
afterwards. Once the glue had
dried I cut along the lines with a
sharp knife, which marked the design directly
into the acrylic. The first section to be
cut was the slot; and to start that I
drilled a hole at the mark point on the
template, using first a center punch and
then a step drill take the finished hole
size up to six millimeters or quarter of
an inch. I then used the jigsaw to cut
along the lines of the template, using a length
of wood as a guide. The trick when you
cutting acrylic is to cut very slowly, in
short sections and avoid heating up the
material.
[Music]
When you edge light acrylic it highlights any
scratches or imperfections and as I had used
an old sheet, I needed to polish it; and so to
do that I ran a blowtorch along the
bottom edges to flame polish them, but I
left the sides unpolished, as this was
necessary for edge lighting. I then sanded the
faces with wet and dry sandpaper, using a
little water to create a paste, starting
with 240 grit and they're moving all the
way up to 3000 grit. To finish I used
plastic polish and a cotton polishing
mop.
Next I cut 2 square blocks of wood for
the base. I marked the centre on one of
the blocks and then set up the router
table fence, so that the router bit was centrally
positioned, in line with the center mark.
I also clamped a length of wood onto the
table to act as a guide. And I routed the
top face of the block, cutting across its
full width, before turning it 90 degrees to
cut again. The router bit is a six
millimeters or a quarter of an inch
straight bit, which is the same width as
the acrylic sheet.
For the bottom face of the block I didn't want
to route all the way across,
so I set up stop blocks.
To accommodate the power cable I removed
the stop blocks and routed a channel
through to one edge.
and I finished off the top edge with a
roundover bit. Next I drilled holes for the
leds, which are five millimeters in diameter.
I used a new five-millimeter brad point
drill bit which made it very easy
to locate and cut clean holes.
For the base center layer, I cut a square of
acrylic, using the same dimensions as the
wooden layers. This piece will be lit
by an LED, so I drilled an eight millimeter
hole in the center to accommodate it
using a step drill. To secure the three
pieces together, I drilled counter sunk holes
into the corners and screwed them together.
I sanded the sides flat and applied some
clear varnish. The next job was to solder
the LEDs together.
There are four white and four blue LEDs
pointing up, with which light up the tree
and another blue LED pointing down, which
lights up the base. The circuit diagram
looks like this, with three sets of three
leds in series with 220 ohm resistors.
All of the information about how this is
wired, along with a step-by-step guide
can be found on the TECHYDIY.ORG website.
To make the assembly easier, I drilled a
template into some scrap wood, following
the same pattern as the base.
[Music]
Once the leds are soldered, I installed them
into the base, hot glued the power lead in
place and then screwed the base together.
Slotted the acrylic cut-outs together and
installed it into the base. So let's check
it out! Thanks for watching. Please don't
forget to Like, comment and subscribe and
I'll see you again next time
[Music]