DIY Lightning Logo From Scratch (Using Old Laptop Battery)

After stepping into DIY world, i decided to get things a bit organised.For quiet a time i was planning to work on videos and convey my work through my YouTube channel. To initiate this idea i have selected DIY KING as the name of my channel through which i will be publishing and conveying my work on all e-platforms like YouTube channel, Instructables, facebook, Pintrest etc. So this project is all about making an attractive logo for my channel (It could be anything such as your name,company logo etc). The basic idea is to engrave the name of my channel on a transparent Plexi glass sheet and light it up by an led strip. The final result is an awesome lightning logo that is powered by old laptop batteries.

So lets get building!

My choice of materials for DIY project is always focused towards selecting locally available materials that gets the job done nicely and cheaply.So for this project the following is the list of materials:

• 12v LED Light strip (any color)
• Old laptop batteries
• A switch and a 6mm charging jack.
• 5mm thick plexi glass sheet.
• Bidding wood
• 3mm Oak plywood
• some Philips heat screws.
• Heat shrink tubes
• A printed logo

The tools that i have used in this project are as follows:

• Circular saw (As table saw)
• Electric engraver
  
• Handsaw
• Miter Saw
• Cordless drill
  
• Philips head screw drivers etc.

For displaying the name i have used a transparent sheet of plexi glass.I loved the glass like finish of this material and the durability if offers as compared to a glass. So in this case its the material of choice.

I have brought a bit bigger sheet and the cut the sheet to size using my DIY table saw (made from a cordless circular saw). The following are the dimensions of the led panel (The dimension can vary depending upon the size of logo.)

Dimensions:

• Thickness: 0.5 cm
• Height: 8.5 cm
  
• Length: 26 cm

After cutting the panel to size i have pasted a printed logo of my channel name. Latter on i have manually engraved the surface of panel by using a electric engraver(this step can also be done by using a hobby knife or either by using a CNC ). After getting done with the engraving i have removed the protective sheet from both sides of the glass plate,

Note:

Always try to peel of the protective covering of the glass sheet as later as possible because i have found this material to be very sensitive to scratches.

After making the main panel, a wood base is made to hold the main glass panel and moreover enclosing the battery while holding the switch and charging jack.

This enclosure is made using bidding wood and the base is made out of 3mm plywood.The dimensions of the wooden enclosure are as follows:

Dimensions:

• Width: 5 cm
• Height: 4 cm
• Length: 27 cm

First i have glued the glass panel using two bidding stripes. Later on i have made the walls around the sticks to hold everything in place.Meanwhile i have made a hole and a grove in order to attach a switch and a charging jack to the box.Finally a base plate made out of 3mm plywood sheet is attached to the bottom of the box using six phillips head screws.

The LED strip that is used here is a 12v led strip having multiple LEDs being placed on the the copper strip while being connected together. You may cut down the required length depending upon the size of your panel but at those intervals where the strip is marked to cut down.

later on i have glued an led strip cut to the length of the panel and glued down using hot glue gun.A pair of wire is then soldered to both the switch and the charging jack so that i may wire up everything neatly later on.

For my lightning projects I intend to recycle rechargeable batteries most usually from old laptops.So i have done the same for this project. I have a bunch of old laptop batteries lying around containing six lipo cells three of which are connected in parallel while the whole battery constitutes two such packs connected in series.

As i needed 12v so i rearranged the cells to get the required voltage to light up the led strip. In total there are six lipo cells,there are 3 pack in total,each of which have two cells in parallel and all three packs are connected in series producing an output of 11.1v.

The battery pack is the warped in a heat shrink tubing and the final pack fits the wooden enclosure neatly.

The battery pack is the wire up in such a way that both +ve and -ve terminal are connected directly to the charging jack and then the -ve wire goes right to the led strip while the +ve wire is connected in series which the goes right to the led strip.

I am just amazed by the final results and the elegant looks of this logo.

The light lasts for weekends on one charge as the current drawn by the led strips is near 50 milli ampere.

For further videos visit my instructables page,like my facebook page and suscribe to my youtube channel for the videos of my upcoming DIY projects.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC4584D31N9RuQ-aEUxP86g?view_as=public

Regards.

DIY KING.