Whenever I walk down the streets, I always notice the signboards of shops and stores. Like a kid, I do favourites- out of the lot. One day, A random thought popped in my head?! Why did I never try to make something like that?!
A few days later, Vaibhav comes to us and says, “Guys, I have got an idea; why don’t we make a LED Sign Board for our Drill Press Cafe.”
Have you heard of the phrase, The Universe listens to you?! That’s exactly what happened!
On hearing this, Naren, Shailesh and I quickly jumped into action. Vaibhav always insists that we need to be responsible while we MAKE since there is a lot of waste generated during the process. Therefore, we have decided to reuse the materials lying around in our Space; we also didn’t want to spend a lot of money buying new materials.
Materials we picked:
- Acrylic– Select a Light diffusible acrylic – I’m sure you wouldn’t want to make a Signboard that doesn’t diffuse the light!
- Angle rod
- Plywood– 18mm
- PVC pipes of 4 inch diameter
Let’s Get Making… “Our Own DIY LED Sign Board for Drill Press Cafe!”
- We started cutting the Acrylic sheet. We had a milky white acrylic of 2mm thickness in our Space, so we decided to use it. Though it isn’t a great idea, let’s stick to the intention of reusing the materials!
- The size of the Sign board is 2ft x 2ft and we have designed the entire structure using the Makercase platform, which made the entire process of designing Quick and Simple.
- Since the material we used is thin, we therefore decided to use the combination of the Finger joint and T-slot joint to ensure the surface’s grip!
- We quickly assembled the box and noticed that it was strong enough to hold by itself therefore, we hopped on to build its frame.
- We welded the 1 inch angle as per our requirement to build the frame.
- We mounted the acrylic board on the top of the frame using good old nuts and bolts. Later, we attached the LED lights inside the frame especially on the side walls.
- In the end, we attached a plywood piece underneath the frame and routed out, not a thorough-hole though, just a half-deep cut, two circular holes where we could secure the pipes later!
- We now cut a thick PVC pipe – YEAH! The same ones we bought- not so long ago- for the sieves/containers of the oxygen concentrator! With that, we attach the pipes to the plywood on the underside.
- Now comes the Climax, Stickering! We outsourced the sticker printing and cutting, as we don’t have a Vinyl Cutter- that could print & cut as big as the size of the box!
- Now comes the final and messy work: Sticking the Vinyl sticker on the acrylic box! ~ I’m sure even you wouldn’t want the stickers to come off or have air gaps when you stick it, so use a hot air glue to avoid all the mess like we did!
