TattiePeeler fran has a much more sedated pace than most youtube channels I follow. My guess some people can get riled by just anything and complain about the first thing they can think of.
That’s ingenious! What about having a 45° slant in each of the segments and shine the lead to that slant from the middle of the segment, it would make it thinner, but would that work? Humm, another thing to experiment
Bravo! So clear, beautiful, elegant & hackable in endless ways & that it came out good on the first iteration is a sign you have a great idea. Thank you for sharing!
Many years ago, I took my mothers bathroom scales apart... They just had a white plastic part about a centimetre or so deep (half an inch maybe) on the PCB with holes the shape of the segments. Each segment had 2 or 3 surface mounted red LEDs pointing up into into the space. With the red plastic sheet over it, the numbers were convincing, without the defuser, it was just a pattern of microscopic dots.
You know how, whenever you come up with some clever design, it turns out that someone else already came up with it? I guess your comment is proof that it happened in this video.
I liked very much the simplicity of the design. I was looking for some big 7 segment displays but they all looked very complex to build. Yous is perfect.
I've been making replacement lightpipe sections for some broken test equipment with my 3d printer. I used clear PETG and when I printed the lightpipe, they became "frosty" at the layer lines. This made them horrible as lightpipe. So I just printed 1.8mm holes in the outer substrate, and threaded raw, unprinted clear filament into the holes. The unprinted clear PETG makes a great lightpipe. I could see making a 3d shell with channels for lightpipe filaments leading to each LED. You could end up with multi-dot segments like the old Pulsar watch seven segment displays, but on a much larger scale.
Awesome! I was just pricing 4" tall 7 segment characters for a project. My van is up to 417,000 miles, I want to display the odometer in real time through the rear window. Do you have the .stl file available for download?
You'll be better off with pre-made displays - these won't be very readable in bright sunlight. Get the ones from Kingbright with five or six LEDs in series, they're super bright and reliable.
There is an aluminum foil tape that is really shinny and really sticky that you can find in the insulation and ducting section. Might give a little more reflection but would be a real pain to get cut and put in place.
You could print it with translucent or "clear" filament with no windows then mask off where you want the windows and paint the inside with silver paint. That should give amazing contrast, wide viewing angle, dust and water proof display.
If you looked for Skee Bowler parts, you could adopt modern high output LEDs on a board, and design a large display. The Skee Bowlers used 4 digits, plus a smaller single digit part. Its hard to find such old items in decent shape anymore. The Cree LEDS would be awesome replacements for the old lamps, and in fact you could just put in resistors to control the current to each one.
Very nice. I used shadow boxes years ago and negative film with incandescence grain-of-wheat bulbs to light letters up on a front panel. Like CH-1, CH-2, MUX, etc. Really like your approach on this one.
Might be worth trying a solid layer or two of white over the whole face - might be like a hidden digit display that way. You could try it out by just putting a sheet of paper over your existing one to see if the idea holds water.
There's a project of a big clock but with ws2812's strip all in serial , 3 leds per segment and an arduino. You can change the colors. Its awesome, because you just hook 4 wires to the strip
Vellemann white PLA is completely opaque, as well as a few others. Print around 1mm or more to completely block light, print up to .2mm to still let some light through.
Such a simple idea, definitely going to try this myself! My printer's much smaller though, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects the illumination and cuteness. I expect I'll have to thicken the walls a bit to prevent bleed through.
Fran, I deal with epoxy for a living, we use "open back bezels" and tape over the back, fill with epoxy and when you remove the tape the back is frosted white but mostly translucent. I could see taping the front of your display and filling the segments from the back with the clear epoxy then when cured simply pull the tape off the front. Your segments would be flush to the face with a frosted epoxy that would make it look more like a mass produced LED display. Have you shared the files anywhere? I might try that just to see what it looks like.
Love the light box concept for the 7-segment display, seems like you could maintain the same physical area of display, but shrink the depth and still get the same effect. Also thinking you could probably print the base plate in a more opaque color, then print a thin layer of white on top of it for the reflectivity... though tape is probably much simpler ;-p
Using PCB as part of the structure is a good idea. You can put the driver as surface mounted parts on one side of the PCB and the LEDs on the other. You can print and additional cover for the electronics if needed making the PCB the filling of a PLA, PCB, PLA sandwich.
Hmm. You could etch or scrape the silvering off a mirror (it's basically paint) in a seven-segment pattern, then put a light box behind it (on the non-mirrored side). Mirror with clock display. Alternatively, print the front area with just "much thinner" printing in the transmissible areas for a sealed, but defused look.
In the old Skee Bowlers and other similar things, they used conventional lamps. Using modern high output LED makes a lot more sense, and less power and fewer components. They made 4-inch segments in a similar fashion, that the lamps in sockets, were stuck up into the display, and then they had a sheet of frosted plastic, over the outside, and black masked off the front. That could just be using black matte spray paint, masked out the clear plastic, would work. Then the frosted plastic over the top of that, to make them look like giant LED display. It would take a lot of plastic to make the 4 inch displays of course. I suppose it depends on how many characters you want to display at once, and you could design 12 segment display into that to form Alpha characters. But even just numbers would be cool. You could build large displays for advertising and other purposes. Custom made to your liking, and place them in a frame.
I love this design - so simple yet such a fantastic result. One idea that struck me when you opened it is that a conical quarter-segment in each section of the X that separates the four LEDs would reflect the light more towards the outer walls instead of towards the front directly, especially if you glue some foil to it, though that starts to defeat the no-light-pipes design principle. With that approach though, I bet you could even use the white PLA as the direct LED light is only hitting a thick area of plastic. The downside would be increased 3d-printing time though.
+Fran Blanche Side emitting LED's that either point toward the 90deg point of the separator could possibly remove the "point of light" effect when viewing from an angle, and would also keep so many photons from striking the front of the display, removing the need for the white paint? or possibly Side emitting LEDS that face the BACK piece, (by bending the side emitting leds 90deg with the emitting side facing the back piece) which could be a completely different color/material that handles reflection better, and could be sprayed for easier application of a reflective paint, being there is less complex areas to get the paint into. One other thing, In place of duct tape, you could use vinyl (typically used for signage) doing the duct tapes' current duty, and if you chose a reflective type, it helps in getting more light out the front of the box.
You could try painting the existing PLA with silver spray first and then the colour of your choice on top of that. The silver should do the light blocking you need.
To amplify the visibility, you may make the lightboxes with inclined walls, covered with white matt paint. That way it will deflecr the light outward instead of multiple reflections inside and you will ommit one led.. But it is better with a lightbox with diffuser front and the leds iluminating directly from behind. By the way, there is no dot on these ...
What about using the white pla to make covers for the openings and elongating them so they are as tall as the light box, maybe extend them out the front a mil or two? It might help with the side angle viewing..maybe?
Perhaps if you flood the sections with a layer of epoxy you'd get slight diffusion and better viewing angles. But it looks better than I would expect from what it is. Very nice
In playing around with my 3D printer, I have printed very thin translucent layers of black PLA that would pass light kind of like smoked tail light covers on cars. Have you tried printing a very thin base layer and then building the boxes over that first layer so that the front of the segment is not open like it is in your current design? Since this first layer would be on the bed, it would be very smooth and look nice too.
Use reflective tape i forgot how they named but its like aluminum cooking foil. Btw it's brilliant idea patent it. Also you can embed PCB in to the plastic just make a space for it.
this design is fine for numbers, what about letters ? for original design : if the backplate is the pcb, add some big white circles on the pcb where the leds legs go thru. (when pcb is made by a firm)
Fran, you have a wonderful voice so sing away my dear. I enjoy hearing you speak and your videos. My quick thought would be to place a thin piece of plastic under the windows as diffusers. The LED's would surely look softer and illuminate the whole window. As far as moving, I know full well as I have two storage lockers currently occuping my house. Regards Tom
Try 3D printing some white "sleeves" to fit inside the segment shapes :D Also you could 3D print a white cover to go over the front, to hide all the segments except when they're lit. Very novel approach, I like! can't wait to see the whole clock ; )
That's a pretty good idea, as far as maybe a whole white cover it might be cheaper (and faster) to just get a sheet of opaque white plastic to attach to the front. Cool project Fran!
I like your 'Fran Lab' Intro please don't change that.... Very cool idea for the light boxes. Instead of making the front pieces thicker, like you mentioned, what if you leave the LED leads longer so the LED is sort of tucked up in behind that front plate, then you wouldn't see them when viewed from an angle.
I would try filling the cavities with a translucent material, to even out the segment. Also I'm wondering how well it could be made to work in direct sunlight like a poolside lap timer.
InsideOfMyOwnMind then it will be more like light pipe. But a thin frosted plastic on top might give the effekt you might look for. About out in the sun. Try it out and tell us. ;-)
Very clever. While 3D printing is good for prototyping in small quantities, to really make this display in mass quantities, you'd want it plastic injection molded at a manufacturing plant. This would solve several of your problems including the slowness of 3D printing, cleaning up after 3D printing, the scaling problem, the plastic color + translucency problem and producing mass quantities.
Could you try making the two front squares (or rather, rhombuses) PCBs themselves? It may make SMD LEDs easier to use and make it a fair bit thinner too. It won't look as nice, but I assume it would function just fine.
Hey Fran, great idea. About the integration of those electrics: Have you heard of (or even tried) conductive PLA filament? So you could make your own (literally) 'printed circuit boards'. Not cheap filament but you need only small ammounts of it. Should be working fine with the LEDs. If you have a 3d pen (for 1,75mm filament) you can feed it with your printers PLA and use it to modify the circuits post print or even doodle them completely by hand. There are pretty affordable 3d pens online. With it you can even repair broken prints. Works great. Cheers Robert
Do you think you can come up with some kind of 3D printable 14 segment alphanumeric variant too? (Perhaps a dot matrix display is a little ambitious(?))
Maybe spray paint the inside white and outside black? You should post it to Thingiverse...these could make a sweet digital clock for a bedroom - hook it up to an Arduino running NTP and a RTC then add a photo cell to fade down brightness at night...
What a great idea! It wasn't until you pulled it apart that it dawned on me it was, quite literally, hollow! Just little triangular boxes (ok, the center segment isn't a triangle.. so sue me!). So simple, yet so effective. And don't stop singing the intro!!!!!
Brilliant idea. I need a new house number and I've been holding off purchasing anything from the hardware store. I'm going to leverage this idea with some of my ws8212 LEDs! I'll be sure to send some pics via Twitter when I get it done.
Line the inside with aluminum foil, that will solve the translucency problem and make it brighter, too. Or just paint the outside black and the inside white. You could make it 6 feet tall and light it with 100 watt bulbs...
I like you singing the introduction.
Heeeeyyyy It's Fran.... No, not the same thing.
I'm still waiting for someone to auto-tune it to a beat. :-)
You may want to call schmoyo on that topic.
Amuses me more than I'd care to admit, that someone, somewhere, is getting riled up by the intro..
TattiePeeler fran has a much more sedated pace than most youtube channels I follow. My guess some people can get riled by just anything and complain about the first thing they can think of.
That’s ingenious!
What about having a 45° slant in each of the segments and shine the lead to that slant from the middle of the segment, it would make it thinner, but would that work? Humm, another thing to experiment
Don’t you dare stop singing the intro.
Dozer1642 shes hot! I don't know why?!!! Is it wrong for me to find her attractive?! I'm just 25 is this taboo?
Dozer1642 i
"It's why you're here". That was funny.
Best youtube beginning in a long time. More singing please.
Not wrong, wouldn't be Fran Lab without the intro :3
It would not be Fran Lab,without that introduction!!!! Without it ,we wouldn't know which channel we are watching.hahaha👍
Your intro is why I watch. The stuff afterwards is why I stick around. You're the best.
Bravo! So clear, beautiful, elegant & hackable in endless ways & that it came out good on the first iteration is a sign you have a great idea. Thank you for sharing!
Me and my wife LOVE you singing the introduction. It’s half the reason we watch!
Many years ago, I took my mothers bathroom scales apart... They just had a white plastic part about a centimetre or so deep (half an inch maybe) on the PCB with holes the shape of the segments. Each segment had 2 or 3 surface mounted red LEDs pointing up into into the space. With the red plastic sheet over it, the numbers were convincing, without the defuser, it was just a pattern of microscopic dots.
You know how, whenever you come up with some clever design, it turns out that someone else already came up with it? I guess your comment is proof that it happened in this video.
I'm looking forward to Fran Lab: The Musical :D
This idea and multi colored LEDs... very cool possibilities! Sweet idea!
I liked very much the simplicity of the design. I was looking for some big 7 segment displays but they all looked very complex to build. Yous is perfect.
Brilliant yet simple solution for making a 7 segment display and easy to scale up or down to suit the application. Thanks for sharing.
Mike
That moment you get when Fran starts to talk about stuff you havent got a clue what’s shes on about.... but I love you Fran your amazing!!!
I've been making replacement lightpipe sections for some broken test equipment with my 3d printer. I used clear PETG and when I printed the lightpipe, they became "frosty" at the layer lines. This made them horrible as lightpipe. So I just printed 1.8mm holes in the outer substrate, and threaded raw, unprinted clear filament into the holes. The unprinted clear PETG makes a great lightpipe.
I could see making a 3d shell with channels for lightpipe filaments leading to each LED. You could end up with multi-dot segments like the old Pulsar watch seven segment displays, but on a much larger scale.
Awesome! I was just pricing 4" tall 7 segment characters for a project. My van is up to 417,000 miles, I want to display the odometer in real time through the rear window.
Do you have the .stl file available for download?
Special EDy
wow what type van is it? and I thought my truck had a load of miles on it. at 300,000+
You'll be better off with pre-made displays - these won't be very readable in bright sunlight. Get the ones from Kingbright with five or six LEDs in series, they're super bright and reliable.
Wonderful idea ! How far did you develop it ? Already installed ?
There is an aluminum foil tape that is really shinny and really sticky that you can find in the insulation and ducting section. Might give a little more reflection but would be a real pain to get cut and put in place.
Brilliant!!!
Literally.
Elegant.
Simple.
Clean.
Inspires me to consider trying to make an insert of clear acrylic laser cut version.
Doug Hanchard you might even want to just put it on the front, outside.
Anders Jackson I was thinking of using the acrylic as inserts into the design shown.
One of the many reasons I am here watching this video is for the Fran-tastic singing intro.
You could print it with translucent or "clear" filament with no windows then mask off where you want the windows and paint the inside with silver paint. That should give amazing contrast, wide viewing angle, dust and water proof display.
Your into(s) are part of your brand. Don't change it!!! You are awesome as you are!
Forget 3d printers, I want to try this with cardboard and hot glue!
If you looked for Skee Bowler parts, you could adopt modern high output LEDs on a board, and design a large display. The Skee Bowlers used 4 digits, plus a smaller single digit part. Its hard to find such old items in decent shape anymore. The Cree LEDS would be awesome replacements for the old lamps, and in fact you could just put in resistors to control the current to each one.
Very nice. I used shadow boxes years ago and negative film with incandescence grain-of-wheat bulbs to light letters up on a front panel. Like CH-1, CH-2, MUX, etc. Really like your approach on this one.
I think it works well, if you add about 0.4mm white sheet front of displays or smoke plastic sheet.
Might be worth trying a solid layer or two of white over the whole face - might be like a hidden digit display that way. You could try it out by just putting a sheet of paper over your existing one to see if the idea holds water.
There's a project of a big clock but with ws2812's strip all in serial , 3 leds per segment and an arduino. You can change the colors. Its awesome, because you just hook 4 wires to the strip
Wow, such a simple, yet neat idea to make a 7-segment display!
Fantastic work Fran! Tumbs Up for You!
Vellemann white PLA is completely opaque, as well as a few others. Print around 1mm or more to completely block light, print up to .2mm to still let some light through.
Such a simple idea, definitely going to try this myself! My printer's much smaller though, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects the illumination and cuteness. I expect I'll have to thicken the walls a bit to prevent bleed through.
Fran, I deal with epoxy for a living, we use "open back bezels" and tape over the back, fill with epoxy and when you remove the tape the back is frosted white but mostly translucent. I could see taping the front of your display and filling the segments from the back with the clear epoxy then when cured simply pull the tape off the front. Your segments would be flush to the face with a frosted epoxy that would make it look more like a mass produced LED display. Have you shared the files anywhere? I might try that just to see what it looks like.
EpoxyJewelry.com send Fran some to try out? Would be good for you too. ;-)
Fran, you are SO smart...that is really awesome. Very Very cool design!
I would be tempted to try chrome spray paint on the inside.
Love the light box concept for the 7-segment display, seems like you could maintain the same physical area of display, but shrink the depth and still get the same effect. Also thinking you could probably print the base plate in a more opaque color, then print a thin layer of white on top of it for the reflectivity... though tape is probably much simpler ;-p
Using PCB as part of the structure is a good idea.
You can put the driver as surface mounted parts on one side of the PCB and the LEDs on the other. You can print and additional cover for the electronics if needed making the PCB the filling of a PLA, PCB, PLA sandwich.
Hmm. You could etch or scrape the silvering off a mirror (it's basically paint) in a seven-segment pattern, then put a light box behind it (on the non-mirrored side). Mirror with clock display.
Alternatively, print the front area with just "much thinner" printing in the transmissible areas for a sealed, but defused look.
In the old Skee Bowlers and other similar things, they used conventional lamps. Using modern high output LED makes a lot more sense, and less power and fewer components. They made 4-inch segments in a similar fashion, that the lamps in sockets, were stuck up into the display, and then they had a sheet of frosted plastic, over the outside, and black masked off the front. That could just be using black matte spray paint, masked out the clear plastic, would work. Then the frosted plastic over the top of that, to make them look like giant LED display. It would take a lot of plastic to make the 4 inch displays of course. I suppose it depends on how many characters you want to display at once, and you could design 12 segment display into that to form Alpha characters. But even just numbers would be cool. You could build large displays for advertising and other purposes. Custom made to your liking, and place them in a frame.
I love this design - so simple yet such a fantastic result. One idea that struck me when you opened it is that a conical quarter-segment in each section of the X that separates the four LEDs would reflect the light more towards the outer walls instead of towards the front directly, especially if you glue some foil to it, though that starts to defeat the no-light-pipes design principle. With that approach though, I bet you could even use the white PLA as the direct LED light is only hitting a thick area of plastic. The downside would be increased 3d-printing time though.
+Fran Blanche Side emitting LED's that either point toward the 90deg point of the separator could possibly remove the "point of light" effect when viewing from an angle, and would also keep so many photons from striking the front of the display, removing the need for the white paint? or possibly Side emitting LEDS that face the BACK piece, (by bending the side emitting leds 90deg with the emitting side facing the back piece) which could be a completely different color/material that handles reflection better, and could be sprayed for easier application of a reflective paint, being there is less complex areas to get the paint into.
One other thing, In place of duct tape, you could use vinyl (typically used for signage) doing the duct tapes' current duty, and if you chose a reflective type, it helps in getting more light out the front of the box.
I think you can probably skip the attachment brim on this print, then you won't ned cleanup. Depends on whether the bed is heated.
If singing the intro makes you happy, you keep doing it! We’re gonna stick around and listen! 😁
You could try painting the existing PLA with silver spray first and then the colour of your choice on top of that. The silver should do the light blocking you need.
If you can print white ABS I think youll find that is very opaque. PLA is translucent unless it has a lot of filler.
Here is an idea, print the chamber walls in white as part of the backside, then print the front dark.
To amplify the visibility, you may make the lightboxes with inclined walls, covered with white matt paint. That way it will deflecr the light outward instead of multiple reflections inside and you will ommit one led.. But it is better with a lightbox with diffuser front and the leds iluminating directly from behind.
By the way, there is no dot on these ...
What about using the white pla to make covers for the openings and elongating them so they are as tall as the light box, maybe extend them out the front a mil or two? It might help with the side angle viewing..maybe?
Great project, will work well with rgb leds 🤔
I look forward to that intro. It’s very unique, it’s FRANtastic! 😊
Excellent project and nice brain bulb on the box design. Thank you Fran!
Perhaps if you flood the sections with a layer of epoxy you'd get slight diffusion and better viewing angles.
But it looks better than I would expect from what it is. Very nice
would aluminum or copper tape help with the light reflection inside the light boxes?
A 3D printed lightbox VU meter project might be kinda neat, especially with being able to make custom shapes.
In playing around with my 3D printer, I have printed very thin translucent layers of black PLA that would pass light kind of like smoked tail light covers on cars. Have you tried printing a very thin base layer and then building the boxes over that first layer so that the front of the segment is not open like it is in your current design? Since this first layer would be on the bed, it would be very smooth and look nice too.
Have you considered using an UV reactive paint in the lightboxes and UV LEDs to illuminate?
Use reflective tape i forgot how they named but its like aluminum cooking foil. Btw it's brilliant idea patent it. Also you can embed PCB in to the plastic just make a space for it.
I love it when you sing the intro. It's you....
Very clever design
this design is fine for numbers, what about letters ?
for original design : if the backplate is the pcb, add some big white circles on the pcb where the leds legs go thru. (when pcb is made by a firm)
Great displays! Its use has so many possibility.
Fran, you have a wonderful voice so sing away my dear. I enjoy hearing you speak and your videos. My quick thought would be to place a thin piece of plastic under the windows as diffusers. The LED's would surely look softer and illuminate the whole window. As far as moving, I know full well as I have two storage lockers currently occuping my house. Regards Tom
Superb concept and build,great project!
Right, I'm just off to design my own version of this for a synth tuner. That's brilliant.
It immediately reminds me of the DSKY-display. Same segment colors.
I want a big green clock for my studio !! beautiful and precise work as always exclusively from FRAN LAB !!!
and yes always sing the intro .
Very cool!
Love the light box!
Try 3D printing some white "sleeves" to fit inside the segment shapes :D
Also you could 3D print a white cover to go over the front, to hide all the segments except when they're lit.
Very novel approach, I like! can't wait to see the whole clock ; )
That's a pretty good idea, as far as maybe a whole white cover it might be cheaper (and faster) to just get a sheet of opaque white plastic to attach to the front. Cool project Fran!
Azayles or just white spray paint the inside
Not opaque. Translucent.
Silver spray paint.
Perhaps print them from transparent material (which turns sort-of opaque and refractive from printing) to cover the slots
Use PLA with chalk in it. It's somewhat harder and less translucent. But it's also harder on the printer nozzle.
Great idea. Would you mind if I adept this for addressable led strips ?
I like your 'Fran Lab' Intro please don't change that.... Very cool idea for the light boxes. Instead of making the front pieces thicker, like you mentioned, what if you leave the LED leads longer so the LED is sort of tucked up in behind that front plate, then you wouldn't see them when viewed from an angle.
I would try filling the cavities with a translucent material, to even out the segment. Also I'm wondering how well it could be made to work in direct sunlight like a poolside lap timer.
InsideOfMyOwnMind then it will be more like light pipe. But a thin frosted plastic on top might give the effekt you might look for.
About out in the sun. Try it out and tell us. ;-)
that a super box, great idea, it can be made out of wood too. I like it, steampunk digital clock would be nice.
Actually, you can build this using pvc, knife and super glue (because it's quite simple). And that's very cool.
Thanks that was really interesting and the display looks great.
How would you go if you just painted the inside of the light box silver?
What about 2 rectangular/square LED's side by side in each segment?
Very clever. While 3D printing is good for prototyping in small quantities, to really make this display in mass quantities, you'd want it plastic injection molded at a manufacturing plant. This would solve several of your problems including the slowness of 3D printing, cleaning up after 3D printing, the scaling problem, the plastic color + translucency problem and producing mass quantities.
That's a really smart idea...well done.
haha love the intro. "its why your here" :D
Could you try making the two front squares (or rather, rhombuses) PCBs themselves?
It may make SMD LEDs easier to use and make it a fair bit thinner too.
It won't look as nice, but I assume it would function just fine.
Your singing introduction is the highlight of my day.
Love yr singing intros !! .... peace out ✌️
RE opacity - with a 2 nozzle printer you could print the body black then put light color on the outside.
Try spray painting the inside white, or even silver?
Holy UCS icon! What version of AutoCAD is that Fran? Looks like a DOS version or at least prior to release 12. Very nice work on the display.
The singing introduction = instant smile on my face
How do you keep each segment evenly illuminated, especially if it is bigger?
Hey Fran,
great idea. About the integration of those electrics: Have you heard of (or even tried) conductive PLA filament? So you could make your own (literally) 'printed circuit boards'. Not cheap filament but you need only small ammounts of it. Should be working fine with the LEDs. If you have a 3d pen (for 1,75mm filament) you can feed it with your printers PLA and use it to modify the circuits post print or even doodle them completely by hand. There are pretty affordable 3d pens online. With it you can even repair broken prints. Works great. Cheers Robert
That's excellent designing . How would a design for a display segment that shows characters go????
how about parabolic internal geometry for both lid & base? perhaps spray-painted metallic silver.
actually, i guess with a simple paper diffuser you could use a swept ellipsoid with focii at the LED and along the center of the segment window.
I’m afraid that I’ve become addicted to Frans lab.
Hi Fran, Would the depth get out of control if scaled up?
Very cool, Ivan Miranda built a giant LED clock using basically the same technique a while ago, not sure if he ever shared his model though
ruclips.net/video/viqP5sbzNGM/видео.html
I love the lightbox idea!
0:10 you do what you want! Whose show do they think this is?
Do you think you can come up with some kind of 3D printable 14 segment alphanumeric variant too? (Perhaps a dot matrix display is a little ambitious(?))
Maybe spray paint the inside white and outside black? You should post it to Thingiverse...these could make a sweet digital clock for a bedroom - hook it up to an Arduino running NTP and a RTC then add a photo cell to fade down brightness at night...
What a great idea! It wasn't until you pulled it apart that it dawned on me it was, quite literally, hollow! Just little triangular boxes (ok, the center segment isn't a triangle.. so sue me!). So simple, yet so effective. And don't stop singing the intro!!!!!
Brilliant idea. I need a new house number and I've been holding off purchasing anything from the hardware store. I'm going to leverage this idea with some of my ws8212 LEDs! I'll be sure to send some pics via Twitter when I get it done.
Bloody brilliant Fran.
Line the inside with aluminum foil, that will solve the translucency problem
and make it brighter, too. Or just paint the outside black and the inside white.
You could make it 6 feet tall and light it with 100 watt bulbs...
You have a woodshop too?