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That's How I Roll! (Skeeball build)
yamatetsu:
I'd be concerned about stability. Putting that plexi loosely into a flimsy wood frame will make that thing wobbly as hell. I would add a piece of clear plexi to the front. I would also use clear glue to glue all the plexi pieces together. That should give it stability. You can then simply glue strips of wood containing the LED-strip on the outside and strips of wood to the inside to mask the LED-strip.
For the frame, I would use strips of wood, into which I would route a channel the width of the LED-strip and the depth of the LED-strip + the thickness of the plexi. I would cut strips of plexi the width of the LED-strip and glue those at a right angle to the plexi panels, so that I can put the LED-strip into the channel and then put the plexi panels on top.
Afther that, I would glue thin strips of wood on the outside and on the inside to the plexi to mask the channel.
thatpurplestuff:
--- Quote from: samej71 on August 08, 2020, 06:42:03 pm ---I'd be concerned that the plexi will get scuffed by errant balls and very quickly not look nice. Have you done any tests?
--- End quote ---
I had the same concerns, and granted I haven't done a TON of testing, but I did grab a 1/8" piece of plexi and bounced/threw/rubbed skeeballs against it from a bunch of different speeds and angles (and with and without a rigid surface behind it to simulate a thicker piece of plexi) and I wasn't able to create any visible scuffs. I'd be very surprised if it didn't show some wear over the years, but I was honestly surprised at how durable it was against skeeballs.
thatpurplestuff:
--- Quote from: yamatetsu on August 09, 2020, 03:38:01 am ---I'd be concerned about stability. Putting that plexi loosely into a flimsy wood frame will make that thing wobbly as hell. I would add a piece of clear plexi to the front. I would also use clear glue to glue all the plexi pieces together. That should give it stability. You can then simply glue strips of wood containing the LED-strip on the outside and strips of wood to the inside to mask the LED-strip.
For the frame, I would use strips of wood, into which I would route a channel the width of the LED-strip and the depth of the LED-strip + the thickness of the plexi. I would cut strips of plexi the width of the LED-strip and glue those at a right angle to the plexi panels, so that I can put the LED-strip into the channel and then put the plexi panels on top.
Afther that, I would glue thin strips of wood on the outside and on the inside to the plexi to mask the channel.
--- End quote ---
Love the idea of the front plexi, both visually and the structural benefit it would add. As I dig deeper into this plexiglass frame idea I found that there is actually an official "Skeeball Glow" build that uses this concept. Definitely might steal some design ideas here.
That is a very interesting channel idea, had not considered using an extra piece of plexi strip to go between the edge lit plexi and the LED strip. Will have to explore this further!
Probably just need to experiment, but does anyone have experience with edge lit plexi? Do I need to have it lit from multiple edges or would a single lit edge per side suffice in this instance?
yamatetsu:
--- Quote from: thatpurplestuff on August 09, 2020, 03:26:11 pm ---Probably just need to experiment, but does anyone have experience with edge lit plexi? Do I need to have it lit from multiple edges or would a single lit edge per side suffice in this instance?
--- End quote ---
The side panels seem to have a rather large surface area, I'd be very surprised if a single lit edge was sufficient to light it up evenly. You will probably end up having to light all edges.
While on the subject, I would ditch the top panel net and do a simple clear panel. If you want to do the top net, there will be a problem doing the wooden frame. You will have to make wooden strips that have both a channel in the bottom to light the side panel and a channel in the side to light the top where the top panel and the side panels meet.
Final suggestion: I would try doing the net etching on both inside and outside of the panels, because edge lighting looks very well against a dark background, on clear plexi it won't be that visible. Etching both sides will hopefully make it stand out a bit more.
thatpurplestuff:
Sooo, no progress on the new net, but I'm going to start mocking some stuff up in Sketchup soon. Made some progress over the weekend, all ramp related. First, attached bumpers and cleaned up the areas that had missing paint from the old LED adhesive.
Cut some angles on the aluminum mounting brackets, drilled holes too but forgot to take pics.
Here's a pic with the LEDs inside their aluminum channel diffusers, as you can see the paint is pretty haggard.
LED strips removed to get a look at the damage.
I used a sharpie to color in the MDF, might go over it with paint if I see anything but honestly it looks great to me. Here's the bumper installed with LED channel below the bumper. I intentionally mounted the LEDs higher up than last time, as the higher they are the better they illuminate the ramp.
I could not be happier with these new bumpers, and it pisses me off knowing how much time and money I spent trying to make them from scratch when a turnkey solution like this was out there. I can't recommend them enough.
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