NanoCrief

After seeing the Nanoleaf Aurora LED panels on the internet, I decided to create my own version so that it could be easily recreated by everyone.

To realize them, you will need:

• Cardboard Vinavil (or any other type of cardboard glue)
• Cutter (or a pair of scissors)
• Led strip RGB
• White paper
• Biodegradable dishes (optional)

I decided to make my LED panels hexagonal shaped (you can choose triangular if you prefer). To make sure the led strip was enough to fill all my panels, I decided previously how many panels I’d make. At the end, I made 11 hexagonal panels, with a side of about 7,5 cm. You need to decide the perimeter of your panel in order to totally fill them with the strip.

The needed formula is: length of your led strip (in centimeters) /the number of the panels you would like to make.

If you don't know how to draw perfect hexagons (or triangles), you can follow this step, otherwise, skip it.

I've seen many good tutorials about drawing an hexagon and I think this is a good one to follow, thanks to "Arthur Geometry" for his good tutorial.

The same is for triangles, here it is: a good video from the same channel.

Cut off the shapes you have already drawn on a piece of cardboard. WARNING (for the younger makers) always get help from an adult during these steps because you might get hurt!

Once you have decided and cut the shape of your panels, we need to create the boxes. After having tried many different sizes at the end I saw that with a thickness of 3 cm the light is diffused well and the individual Leds can’t be seen.

So now we need to cut out from cardboard n stripes (based on how many panels you want to do, in my case 11), which lenght as to be equal to the perimeter of your panel, and 3 cm wide. If you do not have such a long cardboard, you can cut shorter stripes (as I did) and glue them together.

Next we need to glue our boxes. I used some vinyl glue on the hexagon to glue the strip and define the shape. To help yourself with the corners, I suggest you to do some precreases on the cardboard.

To make the panels looks a little bit more shiny, I added (ang glued) aluminum paper at the bottom of each pannel. In this way the light will be reflected better.

One of the last thing we have to do is create our panel shape. After some trial I came up with the design that you can see in the photos. You can choose the one you prefer. With some hot glue I glued them all together. Once this was done, I glued the LED strip inside, making some cut to make it pass through each hexagon. Once everything was glued, I needed to make the top of the boxes.

To make the top of our boxes I used some white paper. It is cheap and you should easily find it at home. To give my panels a better look I used some old recycled biodegradable dishes. They don't let to much light pass trough and give a beautiful effect. By the way, you can even not use them. I copied the shape of one box, actually I cut 2 millimeters more to be sure it would fit well, on paper sheets and cut them off.

WARNING (for the younger makers) always get help from an adult during these steps because you might get hurt!

Once this was done, I used some vinyl glue to glue them on the cardboard.

Your project is complete :)

Enjoy your brand new decoration