Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: dgberg on June 29, 2018, 10:45:31 am
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Came out ok but not entirely happy with the first attempt at installing led light strip in the back of a frame.
First I installed the light strip in the rabbet itself as it was 5/8" deep and the glass is only 1/8".
Just too bright around the edges so I built a 1/2" deep plywood frame and attached it to the back even with the inside of the rabbet extending it another 1/2".
I then installed the strip light away from the glass on the outer edge of the ply frame. Cut a channel for the wire to the outside of the back frame.
Looked a lot better but still a little too bright on the edges. Decided to let it go for the first attempt.
I next laid a white gatorboard over the back with the lights on but it was bit flat so I cut a sheet of metallic paper and put it over the back and what a difference that made.
The light reflected off the paper and really popped the colors.
I took a 3/8" piece of gator and mounted the metallic paper to it with print mount ultra from Seal.
Then attached the gator to the back of the opening, stained all the edges of back frame and gatorboard the same brown color as the Larson-Juhl frame.
Hanging in the studio it looks pretty good despite the edges still being a bit too bright for me.
I trained 2 of my Solux lights onto the center of the panel and that helps a lot.
It needs a pattern of lights installed across the back to light the glass evenly.
Thought of laminating a piece of metallic paper onto the glass itself then making up a panel that covers the entire back with LED lights.
I think the backer on the metallic paper will be opaque enough to still shine through.
Any other suggestions?
As a side note I pulled all the pins holding the glass in and replaced them with beads of clear epoxy.
The tips of the pins could be seen from the front when the lights were on. That fixed that.
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I have seen a type of acrylic called endlighten, that is designed to have lights on the edge and to evenly distribute the light across the entire piece. This might be a idea to try something like that behind the glass with the led strips on the edges. Should give a much more even light.
https://www.acrylite.co/index.php/led-light-guiding-edge-lit-4-conf.html
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Very interesting, will have to experiment.
Just ordered a sheet of light diffusing acrylic from my distributor, Harbor Sales.
Will report back when inserted.
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You just need a contrast mask. Just print a graduated mask on a piece of clear transparency "paper" to even out the lighting.
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Tho more expensive than what you are doing, there are panels out there that are fully lit across the whole panel. In other words, it IS a light panel and you can order it in any size needed.
http://www.thinlightusa.com (http://www.thinlightusa.com)
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Tho more expensive than what you are doing, there are panels out there that are fully lit across the whole panel. In other words, it IS a light panel and you can order it in any size needed.
http://www.thinlightusa.com (http://www.thinlightusa.com)
No prices that I could find but anything up to $150 for 20x30 would be acceptable.
My kits were only $16.95 @ that included transformer and dimmer but I spent 2 1/2 hours installing the whole thing.
$150.00 would still be worth it. Any more then that probably not.
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You ever thought of just putting an acrylic mirror behind it and just let natural light add a slight glow?
https://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/acrylic_sheets_mirror_clear/521