Make DIY custom LED signage
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- Опубликовано: 16 окт 2024
- This video has two short scripts included in its description that will allow you to 3D print a massive range of sign characters in many fonts and sizes. It's almost worth getting a 3D printer just for this project.
To use the scripts you can download a free piece of CAD software called openscad that lets 3D objects be designed with a scripting language. When the scripts down below are copied and pasted into openscad it will let you create custom characters and then generate your STL files.
You can download openscad here:- openscad.org/
Once you've changed the variables to your chosen character and sizes, you can press the button with the box and hourglass to render it, and then the STL button to save it. Have patience - large curved characters will take longer to render. The animated bar graph shows that openscad is building your sign character.
The version 3 scripts are MUCH faster than previous ones because most of the work is done in 2D and then extruded to make the full height character. Most will be rendered in just a few seconds.
I'd recommend playing with the scripts to create small 50mm (2") high characters first to get a feel for it. I used standard PLA and it produced excellent results.
The only limit to the size of character you can make is the size of your printer build plate and your patience, as big characters take a lot of time to print.
In the scripts there are several variables you can adjust:-
Letter = the character, symbol or number you want to make.
Style = the desired font, that must be spelled and capitalised as in the font list.
Size = the height of the character in millimetres.
Depth = the depth of the housing in mm - deeper is better for LED diffusion.
$fn = the resolution of curves. It can usually be left as 100.
Walls = the thickness of the side walls. Half of that will be a groove for the front plate.
Base = the thickness of the base. While experimenting 0.4 is thin and fast.
Face = the thickness of the front face.
The face making script has one more variable called "fit" that nudges the sides in a bit to make fitting the faceplate into its channel easier. A value of 0.5mm will shrink the face 0.25mm on all sides. This compensates for any "squish" as the printer lays down the first layer.
All variables must match between the body and face to ensure a correct fit.
Have a play and let me know what you think of the results.
For those who mentioned using offset vs menkowski, in 2D they seem to render at the same speed when using the radius option for curved corners.
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Here's the first of the scripts. It generates the body of the sign:-
//Sign body maker V3 - bigclivedotcom
letter = "A"; //Sign character to make
style = "Arial"; //See "Help" and "Font List"
size = 50; //Size of character (height)
depth = 10; //Depth of sign character
$fn=100; //Curve facets - higher is smoother
walls = 2; //Side wall thickness
base=.4; //Base thickness (-1 for open back)
face = 1; //Face thickness
//Don't change variables below here
sized=size-(2*walls);
difference(){
linear_extrude(height=depth)
minkowski(){
text(letter,sized,style);
circle(walls);
}
//Lip for front face (half wall thickness)
translate([0,0,depth-face])
linear_extrude(height=2*face)
minkowski(){
text(letter,sized,style);
circle(walls/2);
}
//hollow core of letter
translate([0,0,base])
linear_extrude(height=depth+2)
text(letter,sized,style);
}
Here's the second script. It generates the face for the sign:-
//Sign front-face generator V3 - bigclivedotcom
//All variables must match the sign body sizes
letter = "A"; //Sign character to make
style = "Arial"; //See "Help" and "Font List"
size = 50; //Size of character
$fn=100; //Curve facets - higher is smoother
walls = 2; //Side wall thickness
face = 1; //Face thickness
fit = 0.5; //Slight shrink of face for easier fitting
//Don't change variables below here
sized=size-(2*walls);
linear_extrude(height=face)
minkowski(){
text(letter,sized,style);
circle((walls/2)-fit/2);
}
Ralf's xmas gift ... "Ralf's Discount Embalming and Whiskey Emporium" .. in flashing neon of course!! .. lol
Or Ralph's self-embarming whiskey emporium
Soylent Whiskey??
Written in Papyrus, of course.
This is awesome! If you change the "text(letter,sized,style);" lines to "import("");", you can use this to create signs for SVG images as well as text!
Great tip, thank you!
And you can make contoured boxes for tools and devices. Almost watertight already.
Yes, it works nicely with suitable SVG files.
I believe it only works if the SVG is path based otherwise it won't show up in openscad. You can use ink scape to create or convert paths then load the SVG directly instead of converting to DXF like the old days.
Can someone explain how to do this for a total noob? I have tried doing what I think you are saying and it's not working for me. Thanks so much!
This has got to be one of the best single projects I've seen for a consumer level 3D printer. I can't believe nobody has done this already...
I know you've put a lot of work into this project. It's a tremendous accomplishment. Great job!
A question I was often asked is how can you use your own fonts in OpenScad? In Windows 10 you need to do the following: Under C:/Users//.fonts place your own TTF fonts. If '.fonts' doesn't exist, you have to create this directory yourself and restart OpenScad. You will see them appear in the Font list. Nice work Clive!
Thanks Clive, been having fun with this since you shared the script on Patreon a little while back. It's also fun to play with using the more esoteric fonts like Webdings - or I found a font used for musical scores so printed off a nice treble clef 🎼 .
Also if you set the depth to about 15 and manually add a gap in the side of the character somewhere you can feed a LED neon strip into it.
Excellent job. Having played a lot with Open Scad for 3D printing in the past, I appreciate the amount of work involved. And you managed to keep the scripts short and simple to read, congrats !
I have been contemplating getting a 3D printer for a while and I think this is the project that will make me pull the trigger and get one. Thanks for the work on this and all your videos Clive.
Be ready to spend a lot of time learning the way of thinking. Dont waste money on buying it from chain-stores.
If you are looking for something cheap, ANETS usually go under 200 Euro/Dollars/Pounds and if you are ready to pay more then most better quality manufacturers sell to clients directly. What you buy in shop is just a cheepoo with higher price-tag. Second little trick for beginners: Start with PLA(one Clive is using here) and use 3M masking tape for your bed until you learn other options .
I'm a beginner too, and bought my first 3D printer a couple years ago. It is the AnyCubic i3 Mega S. Its cheap, great results, and I've only had a couple failed prints that came off the bed. I found that cleaning the bed before every print with isopropanol alcohol or contact cleaner completely solved separation issues. (edit: I have only used PLA so far)
@@matt.604 Cleaning bed with isopropanol before every print? Nah. I am too lazy for that. cool think about masking tape, is that you do not have to... I just wipe it with a cloth if I haven't printed for a while and Since mine printer lives in a shed I have to make sure cat wont try to chase the filament (He already had an accident with the nozzle)
This is great Clive, thank you for all the work you done with this script. Have made several nameplates already,
I import them afterwards to thinkercad to create holes through the letters wall for put the cables inside invisible.
If you use RGB LEDs and were making a sign with multiple letters, you could use a cheap/old USB 2 cable to hook the letters together so you only need one power supply/controller - chop off the USB parts and just use it as a nicely-contained bundle of 4 wires
I find the USB wires too thin, personaly prefer to use ALarm cable for shorter strips (available in UK from Electric shops for around a tenner per roll) or a network cable , both having bigger thickness even if the alarm cable might be CCA and are usually more reliable and easier to solder or crimp.
For this application I would highly recommend using offset() instead of minkowski() in your scripts. The minkowski() operation is extremely computationally intensive. The following code is produces almost identical results, but the offset() version runs in about a hundred times faster.
minkowski(){
text(letter,sized,style);
circle((walls/2)-fit/2);
}
offset(r=(walls/2)-fit/2){
text(letter,sized,style);
}
The offset() function has a number of different modes that can be passed to it. I recommend looking at openSCAD's documentation on the function. Of note is that offset() can take a negative value, which in this case would make the letters skinnier as opposed to making them fatter.
Awesome signeage, Clive. You are a wonderful source of nerdy inspiration. You have also ruined my next few weekends in the best possible way!
This is brilliant Clive. The simplicity of the scripts belies the amount of work that must have gone into them. Will be playing signs tomorrow :)
"It lets you use comic sans, if you want"
Which I absolutely do want
That's incredible clive. Bravo!!!!
If it's gonna be on a wall brass inserts are thr way to go if you want the holes to last but the back would need to be 3 mm or so depending in the insert
7:33 - Nozzle size and layer height are different (and independent) things. The nozzle size affects the minimum thickness of vertical walls, not the thickness of the base (which is determined by layer height).
Nice work Clive! I appreciate the hard work and your releasing the script publicly without restrictions. Info like this wants to be free! ;) Even tho I may never need it myself (no printer at this time) I appreciate what must've gone into making it.
WTH, you could have made good money selling this script. Are you NUTS!
Thank you Clive for all you do for us; I for one appreciate it quite a bit.
This is an awesome project with so many potential uses! Kudos!
BTW: I'd be interested in a follow-up about potential power supplies. Let's say, for example, you wanted to have your house number illuminated in such a way, and you didn't want to drill holes in your walls to power it from the inside. So you think: Maybe a battery that's charged by a solar panel during the day would be a good way to do it. What would be the practical concerns to look out for? How to ball-park the size of the battery and panel? How to protect the cells from frost during winter, if that is necessary? Etc. etc.
Great idea Repurpose existing solar lights internals, possibly cut a solar powered string down.
Excellent video, I will certainly use the scripts. Your projects are always interesting. I have made more than a few USB "Gilians Diamond lamps" using excess empty spirit bottles!
Excellent work. Looking at it another way, it's another nail in the coffin of the art of neon tube bending.
Neon has already been replaced in most signs like this with low voltage LED modules.
It was dead already, in the mainstream. At least this project makes it possible to achieve a similar level of quality using commodity LEDs.
@@bigclivedotcom I would say a lot of sign companies will grab this script to use the 3D printers they already have, so cut cost. Hopefully they will also toss a few bits of the Queens's likeage into your tip jar as well to say thank you for the scripts. As to what will work, I would say that any system font installed that is True Type will work there, as those are scaleable vectors.
Probably not going to work well with other font types, and of course, if you use it for commercial work you probably will want to pay the owner of the font (quite a few are not free, but there are plenty of royalty free fonts around in the Open Source community that look quite acceptable) as well, otherwise you might get a knock on the door and a request for both penalties and back royalties in the future. Just because they came with the system does not mean they are royalty free, especially if you ever have had Adobe products ever installed, or used a PDF that downloaded it's own particular font from Adobe, or bundled it in the PDF document itself. Having dabbled in the DTP world a tiny bit there are a whole lot of odd arcane rules there, and yes a font misuse can be very expensive indeed, as a few companies have found out. Made that Adobe font library payment very affordable indeed, even though we barely used more than a handful of the thousands of fonts in it.
Only neon looks like neon and lasts like it, it's a niche but ain't dead.
@@SeanBZA Specialised channel letter 3d printers are about , low Z height , very stiff, needs to be to get speed put of them. Relative to skilled crafts person bending the letter or CNC hogging it out of solid, printing is slow in a commercial environment.
I have been struggling to learn how to do this manually in blender for years. Can't thank you enough.
Oooh, hackspace sign. Cheers Clive!
I made something simular for my brothers birthday presents, I used fusion 360 to get the letters then put them into cura and printed
used 5v led strips and a lot of Soldering
using your script would of been SO MUCH EASIER so thanks for posting it
A very nice project! It occurs to me that you could also print the front inserts upside-down to get the glossy surface on the outside, or scotch-brite that same surface for a uniform matte look.
You could incorporate a marking system inside to evenly place individual LEDs...
Great job once again!!!
It occurs to me that you might be able to boost the luminosity by applying some chrome reflective tape to the insides.
Brilliant, I feel some Christmas decorations coming on.
as a sign man of many years you need at least a 4 inch return to avoid hot spots (seeing the LEDs) you can experiment with 3in or 3 1/2 in depending on led lens defusion. below 3 is generally not gonna happen.
You are the man big Clive, you've done it again lad! You've given my kitty and me another reason to try and keep up with your blazing a bloody trail through today's sea of cheese.
Surely putting a Script in the deScription is dangerous? It might get de-Scripted!!
Joking aside, if there was ever a reason to buy a 3D printer, this would be it!!
Thanks Clive, these look wonderful!
It's important we ask how many children you have, because that dad joke is of very high dad quality.
Very nice project! I did something similar with transparent PETG printed with low infill + RGB LED strips mounted on the side (picture, video and more details on my blog), this provides good diffusion for small/thin signs. Making it completely hollow seems to work well on a bit bigger signs, of course also saves time and material. Also utilizing OpenSCAD and doing no manual additions is ingenious, so it is extremely easy to make different characters, will try this out at some point as handcrafted 3D models always are quite some work. Thanks for sharing :)
Oh Yeah. That's a FANTASTIC Summer Project for me. THANKS CLIVE👍👍
I'm more impressed than I can describe (I know that's what you where going for). I am pleased to announce that I approve this video for public viewing, education and non-commercial purposes.
Wow really cool Clive. Looks like something someone could use to start a small cottage biz from.
Very nice, finally something that I can print without having to take out my 1mm nozzle.
Your script is better than the one I was working on for something similar.
I love your 3D print ideas and prototypes keep working on it.
I have found when doing similar projects, spray painting the inside white can help improve brightness and spread.
Guess it's time to fix my 3D printer, I have a very strong desire for a sign that says "Farts" in pink comic sans
Please post pictures to the patreon and/or discord.
Love the start that you did here! Thank you for sharing!
WOW! I do not have the fancy 3D printer or access to one, but this is a great project to consider. I want to make large, back-lit address numbers for the home. I made some out of treated wood that are illuminated from a city street lamp in front of the home, but these would be a first for anyone around the area. Thanks.
this is perfect. i was going to give a friend a giant letter that's been an inside joke for a while. now i can make it light up with some 5v strips i have and a usb cable...
Wow, so awesome, thanks for sharing this Clive!
More brilliance from you Clive
Thanks for more motivation to actually look at Openscad. I have ( pacman-ed) installed it over two years ago and never got to actually use it...
The only thing that I would add is that for those who would like to put their signs in a window, PLA is likely to shrink in warmer days (makes a nice smell though) and that its not a good idea to use ABM for that, that would result in toxic smoke (I have newer even used-up even mine first spool of ABM).
So if you want to put your signs in a window and live in warmer to mid temp environment. (Including Yourkshire) Then PETG would probably work best. If you keep it inside then PLA is fine
Better way to optimize curves is to use $fa (minimum angle) and $fs (section size). This way if you set it to something like $fa=6 $fs=1, you'd get very clean and smooth surface but you'd avoid problems where you use 100 sections for two different radii and bigger one becomes less smooth or small one becomes too detailed. Another advice I'd make is to print face plate upside down. That way flat surface of the build plate will make it smoother once complete. Traces of extruder won't be seen.
Recreationally, I've made LED signs for family and friends and I used a handheld router. Either hand draw or print template on paper and follow the design with the router. Then insert a LED light strip like the following, "silicone neon led flex strip" (
Thanks Clive, I've a few ideas in mind for something useful like this once I get a 3D Printer.
I like how easy it is to do something like that in openscad.
The minkowski method is nice, but seems to becomes very slow as soon as you use longer text or more complex shapes. In this script, offset() works as well, both for rounded (like here, specify a radius) or sharp corners (specify a delta) and appears to be considerably faster.
Very happy to see code is commented. In software engineering we would probably frown at the extent of the comments. theres more comments than code haha. but thats because usually theres a full dev document sdlc accompanying the source. Yours is obvs kind and generous inline help for the novice. :) Nice work with the prints. I shudder to imagine how long they all took!! Legend. Thanks :-)
Just GENIOUS Clive. Thanks, will make some for my grandchildren.
Re. holes, maybe it would be useful to print a feint grid of dots, lines or dimples on the back to act as marks for manual drilling
Embrace the chaos, drill the holes in random locations!
@@UpLateGeek Drilling in random locations on unprepared plastic tends to cause the tip of the drill to skip around before catching on in the wrong plan. A pattern of dimples makes it stay in whichever dimple you put the tip into, but also makes it hard to drill between dimples. Another benefit of a dense dimple pattern is that it makes it easier to glue the letters onto a back plate.
All in purrfect rainbow fashion.🌈
I have a running joke with one of my coworkers who tends to generate much of my busywork. As soon as she walks into my office, I just say "NO!" So I'm making a light-up NO for my desk. On my Mac, I have one script font which isn't exactly what I want, but it does connect the letters. I put "NO" in the letter variable. I added a "spacing=.95" argument to the text function which makes the connection seamless.
At the expense of increased printing time, you can also increase the wall thickness until the letters touch.
@@bigclivedotcom I suggest to modify the script a bit for this purpose. If you simply make the wall much thicker, the lip for the face plate gets also much bigger. And the face plate gets really bold in the end. But the modifications to avoid this are rather simple.
Get yourself one of these, or just play this video: ruclips.net/video/4gQosYb3m9U/видео.html
Do you have a script example of adding the spacing argument? I tried adding "spacing=.95" but I get a parser error. Is that spacing function an OpenSCAD plugin maybe? Thanks.
@@bunch8 Aye. Edit each occurrence of the text function in both scripts with to look like this: text(letter,sized,style,spacing=.95);
Congratulations, great job, I really like it, greetings from Italy 🇮🇹 👍👍🤗🤗
Thatt seems really neat! I'll certainly try it out once I own a 3D printer. Thanks clive.
Respect for pronouncing Arial correctly.
The points of light created by the LED tape are very reminiscent of old theater marquee signage. I wonder if the effect would be more pronounced using a translucent filament for the cover? I would say there's one way to find out, but I'm currently out of translucents!
No, they are reminiscent of christmas lights. It's ugly...that's why professional signage companies use diffusers and better plastics, like PMMA.
@@alejandroperez5368 I like the old marquee look. That's entirely a matter of opinion and personal tastes. I won't deny that modern signage is pretty slick, but not my preference. 🙂
thanks for sharing! lots of information in the description of this video.
Gotta say Clive, great thumbnail 🙂 and great vid.
Nice result for all your efforts. THANX!!!
Try yellow pla with 'uv' 405 leds , the yellow really fluoresces and will solve your diffusion problem.
Works with blue as well, I have some generic power banks, the ones you add your own salvaged 18650 cell in as advertised by Clive many moons ago, which have the blue operate LED, and the sides glow white in operation.
Very inspiring, thanks Clive.
Very good work! Quite impressive
Perhaps a good idea would be to put aluminium tape inside the base. Especially if you use black filament for the base.
I did consider that, but with white tape.
Or print another lid in white, but narrower to fit all the way to the back. Stick in with double sided tape or a couple spots of glue.
If you wanted white sides too you could probably print the whole letter again in white as an insert
If i remember correctly i prefer Calibri over Arial. Arial is for Notepad and Cmd .. :-)
Nice overview and lots of work done !
Combining this with the LCD backlight diffusion films would make it appear more homogenous.
You could also just make a backlight-lightbox to illuminate a printed sign or image...
That is really neat, now I can make some cool nightlights, I use a led clock you reviewed a while back as a night light in one of my bathrooms, of all the things I can do, I just don't have the patience to get my head around Open S cad.
Thanks big C 🤟
If you start with the script he's given and just start playing, you'll probably be surprised how quickly you can make some cool stuff. Especially if you just want to write words and stuff.
Here's an idea too :)
For a brighter sign, why not use a translucent PETG for the faceplates. If you need to diffuse the light some, you can even use a textured print bed, or if you like seeing the individual LEDs, use something like polyamide tape, or even glass as your print bed to get more clarity from the end result.
Yes, most PETG prints are anyway not completely translucent, more like frosted glass, so this works well in my experience. That being said - putting in 1W of LEDs is quite a lot, I am running mine only at 50% and behind dark tinted glass, otherwise it would be too bright in the evening :D
I've used translucent white "natural" PLA to make lenses for LEDs.
It provides nice diffusion when using rgb LEDs (or in my case WS2812 LEDs)
Thank you so much, my printer arrives tomorrow. I can't wait to try this out!
Some of those Chinese made and Ebay sold Mains LED lights you made your video about "Dangerous bare 230V LED tape" may work well in something like this if you do not want to run batteries and battery LEDs. House the LEDs in the letter boxes run safe insulated jumpers between the letters and you have a neon sign type replacement. Bonus points bracketing the letters together for your sign and making a inline toggle switch for it.
Nice. SCAD Stuff works fine. Pity I have black PLA at the moment but will give it a try soon.
Excellent, thank you Clive
Minkowski is an effective tool in openscad but if you can avoid it that is best for render speed. Play around with the offset command as it should render decently faster and offer more options for reshaping designs and sketches. The latest versions also have a customiser in the window menu that will break out all of the options into a configuration window similar to the thingiverse customizer.
What I like to do with the $fn command is type 'resolution=60;' and '$fn=resolution;', then in many commands you can use '$fn=resolution/2' to half or double the resolution of that individual object. Think of rendering a large object with a small screw hole, if they're all rendered the same the small hole may have many faces too close together which can cause printers to stall.
PLA is basically immune to 3M adhesive, you have to tape something down to the plastic like blue tape then stick it to that. I'm gonna try sanding the plastic on my latest project and see if that will help but I can't imagine it will be perfect.
Excellent work 👍
Positively life-changing.
I've had good experiences when I made the number of curve facets match 360 - 90 results in a faster calculation than 100, for more detail I'd go for 180 to speed up the calculation.
I once read, don't know if true, that if your using color LED's use white covers. And if using white LED's, use color covers. This makes it so the cover doesn't filter the actual color your trying to display. Car signal and indicator lights use this principle.
I guess you've also made custom boxes 🙃
I'd like to see some in Chinese letters, or Cyrillic, perhaps even a fancy font like one based on a woodcut
I ain't buying that unless Gill Sans (at least the regular and bold kind) is fully supported, haha.
Looks like this kind of lettering can go up to IP67 no problem, good for outside signage if you use UV-resistant filament. Very nice!
You almost make me want to buy a 3D printer thing
Me too. Clive did predict this would happen.
🍭Thanks for the creative techniques, Clive
this is tempting me to buy a 3d printer
Very cool.
Who’s going to the first to print one so big it’ll require lightbulbs? :D
Very nice indeed. I still think a big fu k off sign wired to the door bell would be ideal. 🤣🤣👍👍
Well done mate.. Nice work.. !
What is the alternative for people like me that don't have a 3d printer? Cardboard and coloured cellophane? I had the same issue with the pcb design software. I gave up in the end and went back to copper clad boards, a heavy whiteboard marker and ferric chloride.
Nice it's Clive video's time love Theses kind of videos interesting as ever
@3:39 - It looks as if you have used some marble PLA filament. I have gone through a couple of rolls of that stuff and I particularly like it. It doesn't work well with nozzles under .04mm though. The black knobly bits get stuck.
I do like the effect it gives.
Man, I really need to get myself a 3D printer. Too bad Canadian money is almost the same value as Monopoly Money these days
Thanks Big Clive! I was thinking about making an address and last name illuminated sign for the front gate. I have a surplus flexible solar panel and figured I'd design a battery charger for it. I think this method may be the way to go. Maybe mount it to some PVC foam board and water proof it with Silastic.
Do you think PETG would be a decent material to use? PLA probably won't last long out doors in Southern Arizona.
Not sure which material is best for outdoor use.
Check out Chucks videos. He had made a series on tests of different filaments in the Arizona desert sun. And he is doing a new one testing different methods of uv protection.
This could be helpful for you.
ruclips.net/video/VkWCHUsuzHg/видео.html
Clive - can we see the thing printing - I know bugger all about 3D printing so would love to see a letter emerging! P
Great! Thank You Clive 👍😊
Sir. May I suggest you do a video dissertation on electrical contactors vs. solid state relays in high voltage high current applications? 🧐
you should put all your scad scripts on your website somewhere.
Turn off combing in cura zu get rid of the crisscrossing lines in the surface of the prints. Makes for even smother signs.
As a programmer, ill love to mess around with this to see what i can make.
On top of putting these scripts into the description, you may want to look into also uploading them to 'gist.github.com', which is like paste-bin, but designed for short snippets of code.
It's private (only people with the link can see it), scripts can easily be downloaded, they don't expire (and are hosted by GitHub, so likely won't disappear anytime soon), are editable and more. It even has syntax-highlighting for .scad files.
I personally use that service a lot - whenever I need to share some code and examples.
With the R.. Would reflective (either retroreflective, or just metal) tape 'fake' a second set of LEDS?
Also... Hot glue in spots? I know the double sided tape on that stuff is absolute crap. Put it on some shelves for lighting. Woke up the sound of it flopping down the shelves in the middle of the night. Would printing clips for the tape to slide into help?