Express yourself with a light-up acrylic display! This inexpensive and easy project is a great starter project for a makerspace and will help new makers get familiar with simple electronics, image processing, and using the laser cutter.

Files for 3 sizes of displays are included here, but if you want something different, open the Fusion 360 files and modify the parts.

Supplies

Materials

Birch plywood sheet, ⅛” thick
Clear Acrylic sheet, ⅛” thick (Cast is preferable to extruded)
LED strips - 12V, single color or RGB (not addressable LEDs / Neopixels), (such as https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NATWJ49, the 12V strips run on 9V)
Stranded wire 24 AWG
9V Batteries
Battery snaps
Brass fasteners - 1”

Tools

Soldering and wiring tools
Laser Cutter
Graphics design app (Google Draw, Vectr.com, Inkscape, etc.)

Step 1: Choose Your Images

What lights you up? What’s your message?

Collect ideas and images. Not all images are good for etching wth the laser cutter, so have several to choose from.

Step 2: Pick the Display Size, the Acrylic Thickness, and the Etching Style

Size (width and height of the display): you have 3 easy options:

Attached here are sets of part drawings (SVG files) for 3 “standard” sizes: 4”w x 6”h, 3”w x 5”h, and 4”w x 4”h
For other custom sizes you can open the Fusion 360 file and change some of the driving dimensions. (Under the Modify Menu select Change Parameters. There you can modify the widht and the height of the display)

Acrylic thickness - 3 options for the light up display:

Use 1 piece of ⅛” thick acrylic and a ⅛” wide slot in the wood
Use 1 piece of ¼” thick acrylic and a ¼” wide slot in the wood
Use 2 pieces of ⅛” acrylic and a ¼” wide slot in the wood

Engraving style

Etch the graphics on the front, back, or both sides of the acrylic. The front and back etching creates depth, especially using 2 pieces of ⅛” thick acrylic back to back and etching on all 4 sides

Step 3: Create Your Graphics

Now its time to design the graphics for the front and/or the back of the acrylic. We like to have am image on 1 side and text or shapes on the other.

You may want to remove the background from your image using an online app such as https://www.photopea.com/https://www.remove.bg/

When etching on acrylic its best to have a black and white image (though many laser cutters will convert a color image to black and white for you). Convert your image into black and white in 1 of these 2 ways:

Make it grayscale using a graphics editor or even google Slides. If you do not see good contrast in your image now, it won't get any better after etching. Experiment with the contrast and brightness controls to get an image that looks good to you. Grayscale images etch best on high resolution laser cutters.
Make it into black and white "blobs" as an SVG file. We frequently use the free site https://picsvg.com/ to process images for laser cutting. It has easy and powerful filters that convert a pixel-based image (like JPG or PNG) into a collection of black and white shapes that can be modified/removed in an SVG editor (such as the free, browser-based https://vectr.com/

Step 4: Prepare Graphics for Laser Etching

Notice that it is the dark parts of the image that are etched, and they will show up as white. For a realistic look, it's best to invert the image colors. That means black becomes white and white becomes black. You can do this in many graphics editors, and even in Google Slides or Draw

For images that will go on the back face of the acrylics, make sure to mirror the image. Sometimes this can be done in the laser cutter software, and many graphics apps have a tool to do this.

Step 5: Laser Cut the Birch and Acrylic Pieces

SVG files for all the parts are attached here, as well as the Fusion 360 file from which all the part drawings were generated.

If you are doing this as a starter project for a group of people, you can make all the birch parts, and acrylic display "blanks", in advance.

When the acrylic is being etched, people can be creating the LED circuit.

Step 6: Make the LED Circuit

The LED strips used here are 12" long single color strips with 12 LEDs, powered with a 9V battery (don't worry that the specifications say 12V, they work fine on 9V).

The strips can be cut to a prefered size with scissors, but must have a multuple of 3 LEDs. One strip can be cut into 2 and you can solder more wires to the cut off end and use it for another display. See the images for the process.

The circuit is very simple - connect the (+) and (-) termails of the battery to the appropriate wires on the LED strip. Add a switch to make and break the circuit. In this design we make a switch from 2 brass fasteners. Use a professional switch if they are available and you prefer them.

Step 7: Assemble Your Light-up Display

Fasten the wood pieces with white glue or wood glue if desired

Fit the battery underneath. Add a bit of hot glue to hold it on if necessary

Step 8: Tips for Making a Narrower Display

The sample shown in this Instructable was a 6" wide display, lit by a strip of 6 LEDs.

For a narrower display you will need to use a 6" LED strip since the LEDs are wired in sets of 3 on the strip. Tuck the extra LED strip through the slot and just leave it underneath the base.

Step 9: Other Resources for Makers and Maker Educators

We hope this project lit you up!

The K-12 Maker team at the MIT Edgerton Center supports teachers in creating and delivering fun, enriching Maker experiences for their students, no matter what subject they teach.

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