LED Light Sign

After drawing my last name in a graffiti style on paper, I wanted to engrave the design onto acrylic with a laser cutter and have it light up. The first step was obviously drawing my last name (Ha) in graffiti on paper. After that I took a picture of it with my phone, and using the app Procreate I cleaned it up and added in a brick wall background for my letters.

1/4" Particle Board Sheet

5 LED lights (any colors)

Positive and Negative Wire

1/4” Acrylic Sheet, < 10"/10"

Lithium Button Cell Battery and Battery Pack

3D Printed Piece

Spring wire connectors, 10 total (2 for each light)

I first used TinkerCAD to design a simple holder for each LED to point upward and a slot to hold the acrylic in place. After printing that out using a local 3D printer in my area, I used the spring wire connectors to hook up all of the LED lights to one battery pack. I put each LED in a hole, stuck the wires out the back, cut additional wire to reach the battery packs wires, and clipped them all together, each LED had two connectors, one for negative and one for positive, out of these connectors was the additional wires that went to the last two connectors, connecting every light with the battery pack. I then tested it out and messed around with the light angle to achieve my desired look.

I then designed a box to house the battery pack, 3D printed holder for the LED’s, and all the wires. The box was then designed on the free online vector software Inkscape and then cut out of particle board with my local laser cutter. I made the box in a way that it would snap together without glue, hence the cookie cutter design. I purposely gave it a big slit on the top for the acrylic piece to pop out of, along with the LED lights. I designed the other hole on the side big enough to be able to turn the battery pack on and off.

I then took the last name drawing, put it into a free online vector drawing software called Inkscape, and designed the cut (red lines) and engraving (black and blue lines) that I wanted on my piece of acrylic. It was important to get it as a vector so that it could be laser cut. It was also important to add an inch of space at the bottom to slide into the gap in the 3D printed holder. After that I sent it over and got it laser cut out with my local laser cutter.

Finally, I then put the top of the box through the bottom extra inch of the acrylic piece, followed by sliding it into the 3D printed gap. I then put the 3D printed box and put it together around the 3D printed holder and all the wires and such. Lastly, I turned off the lights and gave it a go. In the future I would love to make this on a much bigger scale, potentially having it be a big art installation piece. Overall I was very please at how it came out.