I saw a recent discussion on how difficult it would be to create a glowing logo for a popular smartphone. And i thought to myself, what a great idea for a DIY project! Here i will show you how to build a simple glowing logo for your favourite product, brand, or even person using an Arduino with some patience.
Prototyping Methods
In order to build a custom case, logo or other glowing ‘thingy’ you need to first decide what ‘container’ you want to build it in (or to design).
Some good prototyping methods:
- 3D printer
- Polymorph
- Wood
- Plastic
- Clay * caution conducts electricity until dry
- Cardboard
Creating a ‘Case’
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For this build I chose to use cardboard as I have a cute box available.
I sketched the design first. And then using a sharp exacto knife I cut out the areas I wanted the light to shine through.
Assembly
To do the assembly, I used:
- The case I created
- Small PCB
- 4 pieces of 22 gauge wire
- Some fancy wire ends
- 3x 100 ohm resisors, but 330 would work fine
- 2x Common Cathode RGB LED’s (although you could use three if you wanted) and omit the resistors
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You need to “recreate” your breadboard on your PCB. Be cautious, some PCB’s have ‘runs’ between the holes to connect them. You need to look very carefully with a bright light to make sure!
Step 1: Solder the long legs together first
Step 2: Solder a black cable to the long legs – this will be your ground
Step 3: Next, solder the 3 remaining RGB LED’s with the ends facing each other in a 1 to 1 fashion
Note: Do not mix and match legs if different sizes (to try and put RGB LED 1’s Green pin with RGB LED 2’s Red pin). It may seem like a cool idea, but the different RGB LED’s internally have different resistances. So what will happen is only one side will light and the other will not.
Step 4: Attached resistors to the three legs. And solder 22 gauge wire to the other end of the resistors
Note: You may want to do these one ta a time and test them on your Arduino’s 5V pin to make sure they are correct and working.
Step 5: Once the electronics are assembled, move them into the case. Popped out the wires through the small hole on the side, And connect to power.
Finished Product
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