Acryl Stand

This illuminated acryl stand has been kept simple as this also was a project on a birthday party so all of the kids around 12yrs are able to build one. Of course, you have to keep an eye on them while they use drill press and large diameter forstner drills

What you'll need:

  1. a piece of wood, thickness ~19mm *
  2. a piece of plywood, thickness 4mm
  3. plexiglass in size of 100mm x 100mm x 4mm *
  4. mini switch
  5. LED 5mm diameter (either simple color or rainbow) + resistors (470Ohm-820Ohms per LED)
  6. battery (2 x CR2032)
  7. some small cables

(*you can easily vary in size, simply adapt plans)

plexiglass

the light of the LED will break at any scratches of the acryl; as deeper they are as better for illumination.

Use a Dremel and a larger milling bit to add your preferred picture on the surface. You easily can find plenty of examples in the web.

I cut the acryl by using the laser in shape with following measures. The half-cyrcle will fit nicely to the upper end of LED so you can make the most of the cut.

the right shows the acryl plate already scratched

wooden stand

On the top, you need in the first instance a groove in the same width, as the thickness of your plexiglass. This can be cut easily using a circular saw

(right: finished stand with mounted LED and switch)

The bottom side needs some drills to hold the battery, switch, LED and also give some space for cabling

(right: final view to the bottom side, battery mounted and covered, LED and resistors covered with hot glue)

For realization you need

  1. drill 15mm (Forstner)
  2. drill 20mm (Forstner)
  3. drill 30mm (Forstner)
  4. drill 35mm (Forstner)
  5. drill 5mm
  6. drill 6mm
  7. maybe a chisel and hammer

Once you have marked the drill center, gently work into the wood and consider the right thickness.

Remove carefully the wood between the 35mm drills so you'll end up with a large gap able to hold easily the electronics.

Similarly, do for two channels between battery and switch - this needs to hold the cable.

battery cover

The battery cover is made out of 4mm plywood; simply cut with coping saw or -as I did- by using a laser cutter. A screw whole will allow later to fix the cover.

mounting

stick the LED in the wholes, solder one resistant per LED and finally end up with three parallel soldered LED/resistor combo. One side needs to be connected to the battery, the other one via the switch to the other battery pole.

It goes without saying, that LED has polarity so take care the electrode needs to end somehow at the Minus pole, the anode at the plus pole of the battery. In case you're wrong nothing will happen on no light glow :-)

Done!

our "kids" made different themes and this is the result

finally in motion