LED Lights Box

Hello, I am a high school student in the Northern Colorado area that is making a LED Lightbox as a school assignment. So some of the things that are being used in this project are the acrylic plastic parts, 3D printed parts, wiring so you'll need to know how to solder, you'll also need an LED light strip, and then a switch. Those are the important items that you will need to have for this design. Now the image that you see is the design I put into my acrylic now I would have put the final product of it but I wasn't able to get a picture of it put all together.

switch, LED light strip, 3D printer a laser cutter/ engraver, measurement tools, 3D design program.

Now we into the steps you'll be using for this project. Step 1 is to get acrylic and cut it out. there are many ways to do this but the most accurate would be a laser cutter but you will also want to engrave your acrylic because that way there is a design instead of a transparent piece of plastic. Now after you'll go onto your next step. And using google drawing trace an image that you copied into google draw. Then you can use a laser cutter but it needs to also be able to engrave the acrylic so then when you transfer the file you'll need to download it into a PDF file that way you can actually put it into the laser cutters computer then you put the plate of acrylic in the cutter then you make sure your settings are correct it can vary but you have to read a manual or look up the laser cutter you have then you set the settings to what it says in the book or on the internet.

So you'll need to design before anything. Don't try to eyeball it, take accurate measurements and then make your design for the slot, now the very big thing is the length and width of the box because all you are doing is making sure that you have a slot that can fit the piece of engraved acrylic that is customized to your liking. But the reason why is second is that this way you already are able to make measurements and not having to cut more acrylic just to fit this prototype slot, and for this, I used a 3D printer for the prototype.

Now when I started making my final design I did it in a program called tinkercad and when I did it, when putting the file into the 3D you'll need to make the file a .stl file that way the printer will see the image or design in 3D. You'll need a whole for the switch then also the wire and then the slot whole for the acrylic piece so those are things absolutely needed for the final design.

The next step is making and acquiring all the pieces you need for the project. So the things you'll be getting is the actual switch then also the wires also need a plug with a converter then also soldering equipment will be need.

So when you have properly soldered everything, the next step into this is securing everything into the proper places, so for this, I had to put in the switch because I soldered the wires with the switch not in the box to make that step easier and then the just put it in. Now I was having problems having to try to glue it down and eventually I simply just stopped trying to glue it and taped it down because that was more time saving but it was too late and I was unable to get the picture of my box fully done and finished with the lights on the but the things I taped down into the box was the switch and then also the LED strip in the slot for the acrylic piece that was cut out, now it was not put inside but just at the very end of the slot so the LED's didn't just hit the acrylic head-on and eventually damaging the LED. But there are the steps in how I made a LED lightbox in my class.

Also, the image that you see is my attempt at trying to glue the LED strip into the box.