LED-illuminated azeotropic wheel – or circular monochrome display

The above freeze frame of this animated display cannot convey the full effect of its operation. But it can be imagined as the work of an old monochrome display. In fact, this circular display is made from a multi-layered laser-etched acrylic sheet and LEDs. The LEDs light up at a certain time, which is strictly synchronized with a certain layer of acrylic sheet, thereby highlighting the images.

In this project, the images are applied to thin sheets of acrylic that glow when edge-lit. General acrylic sheet, contains twelve acrylic layers (like a pie) with images taken from the famous Linux game - World War IV. For perfect synchronization, a stepper motor is used that rotates the acrylic disk.

Now a little more about the technical part of the project

The display is a series of 12 frames on thin acrylic sheets with a ring of LEDs around the edge that flashes every 1/12th of a full turn of the ring, thus creating an animation. The stepper motor driving the multi-layer acrylic disc is controlled by an Adafruit Arduino UNO microcontroller. The LEDs are connected via a bridge connection with a stepper motor. The timing is calculated by the Arduino controller, simply by counting the required number of nanoseconds between LED flashes, after each next step of the engine.

The images were created in the Inkscape program, which allows you to output an image of each layer in PNG format. Using the Image Magick video editor, you can get an animated GIF file. This is very useful for making fine adjustments to the image and timing.

After fitting all the frames, they are applied to the acrylic circles with a laser, on both sides of the sheet. For the final installation, it took four layers of 3 mm plywood cut in the form of a circle, a NEMA 17 stepper motor, two circles of black paper (one is glued to the plywood base of the LEDs, the second to the edge of the acrylic sheet so that the LEDs do not shine too brightly along the edge of the sheet).

One of the most common elements of home interior is glass. Glass today makes a variety of shelves, both in cabinets and in a separate form, as well as doors for the headset. Wall-mounted glass shelves in the interior already have an excellent appearance. But LED lighting, which is easily installed on such shelves with your own hands, will help them sparkle with unique colors.

But in order for the wall shelves to sparkle in the interior, you need to know both the features of glass products and the installation steps for the LED strip. Our today's article will tell you how to make LED lighting with your own hands.

Features of glass shelves

In the modern interior, glass products have become an integral part of the interior decoration of a house or apartment. The following products are made of glass today, which are especially popular among the population:

• wall shelves;
• whatnots;
• glass sections of cabinets;
• regular shelves.

Note! Glass is also often an element of interior doors, lighting fixtures (wall or ceiling lamps), as well as a variety of decorative elements in the interior.

Glass in the interior

The use of glass elements is allowed in almost all domestic premises. The only exception is the children's room, as here the glass can lead to injury to children.
The above elements are commonplace. But the use of LED backlighting of such glass products will achieve the following positive aspects:

• visual expansion of the space of the room. This design solution is relevant for small spaces. It allows you to look at the room in a completely different way;
• allows you to make the room brighter;
• gives the room sophistication and unusualness, as well as airiness and holiday atmosphere;

Illuminated glass shelves to create the right atmosphere

• creates local and decorative lighting in the room;
• allows you to visually delimit the space;
• makes it possible to create a certain atmosphere in any room of the house.

It is worth noting that LED lighting, due to a number of its features, especially when using LED strip, makes it possible for absolutely anyone to make such a backlight with their own hands.

Features of creating local lighting

Illumination of glass products (for example, shelves) using LED strip has a lot of advantages, among which the following points should be highlighted:

• suitable for lighting any shelves;
• each shelf can be equipped with a ribbon of a different color, which will add color to any interior;

multi-colored backlight

• led can be installed on any surface, including glass;
• simple installation, which is easily implemented with your own hands;
• the backlight, when used simultaneously with the multi-color LED strip (RGB products) of the controller, can be multi-colored and controlled using the remote control.

Note! Today, all the colors of the rainbow and shades are available for LED backlighting. To do this, you need to connect a controller with your own hands to the scheme of operation of the LED strip. Such illumination of shelves in the interior will have a particularly attractive appearance.

Using the controller in the circuit will allow you to perform the following manipulations:

• change the colors of the backlight;
• change the brightness of the glow;
• add flicker.

Such modes will allow you to create the most suitable atmosphere for the situation in the evening and bring brightness and colors to your life. At the same time, the glow of the LED strip will be most effective for glass shelves.

Shelf lighting with flowers

Particularly useful and spectacular will be the lighting of those glass shelves on which indoor flower pots are placed. For them, additional lighting, especially for tropical varieties, will be very useful, as it is an integral part of the successful cultivation of plants at home.

Options and methods for installing local lighting

Edge lighting

There are several ways to make your own backlighting with led for glass shelves. Glass wall shelves can be illuminated in the following ways:

• edge lighting. In order to create such a shelf illumination, led must be installed on the back of the shelf holder. Mounting to the plane of the shelf holder is allowed. As a result of this arrangement of the lighting device, the light is uniform;

• classic or traditional lighting. Here, the wall shelves will be illuminated from below or from above.

Note! Whatever way you choose to mount the led on a glass shelf with your own hands, the light from it should not shine into your eyes.

Traditional shelf lighting

Very often, wall-mounted glass shelves are made not from transparent, but from frosted glass. If there are matte shelves in the interior, the placement of led can be carried out by any of the above methods.

Step-by-step instructions for creating local lighting

You can install LED lighting on wall shelves in several stages:

• connecting the product to circuit components;
• installation on the surface of the shelf.

Let's consider each stage in more detail.

Connecting Circuit Components

Before proceeding with the installation of led, it must be said that these are low-voltage products. Therefore, in order for it to work from a standard 220 volt power supply, you need to connect a power supply of the appropriate power to it. The scheme for connecting the product to such a converter is shown below.

Scheme for connecting the tape to the power supply

In addition to the power supply, a controller can be connected to this circuit (when using multi-color products). Its connection is carried out according to the following scheme.

Scheme of connecting the tape with the controller

The main thing here is to connect the wires correctly, observing their polarity. If this is not done, the backlight will not work.

Placement of the light source on the surface of products

Very often, a special anodized aluminum profile is used to illuminate glass shelves using led.

Aluminum anodized profile

This profile is inserted into the glass. The best solution would be to use a profile with a width of 8 mm. At the same time, the light source itself will remain invisible, which is the main requirement for this kind of work.

Note! Using a special profile will help create the effect of light reflection from the edges of the shelves.

When installing a profile, work is carried out according to the following algorithm:

• first you need to cut the profile to the length of the shelf;
• all protrusions should be removed from the cut piece of the profile. Otherwise, further installation of the light source will be carried out with considerable difficulty;
• after that, we drill holes in the profile for its fastening;
• fastening the profile to the glass surface can be carried out using plastic dowels and self-tapping screws.

Note! When fixing the profile, its evenness must be checked using a level. Otherwise, the interior lighting will look crooked.

If the profile has open ends, then it will be quite easy to install led into it.

Tape inserted into the profile

In addition, you should know that since the LED strip itself is equipped with a self-adhesive surface, it can be mounted on the surface of a glass shelf without a special profile. But, in such a situation, the luminous flux emitted by the light source can hit the eyes. To avoid this, you can stick a decorative appliqué on top of the edges of the shelves.
Installation of led without a profile is carried out as follows:

• the surface on which the product will be attached should be well cleaned of dust and dirt, and also degreased. To do this, it is best to use cleaning products specially designed for glass surfaces;
• after that, carefully remove the strip from the base of the product that protects the self-adhesive layer from contamination;
• install the led on the underside of the shelf. At the same time, we only lightly attach it to the surface in order to be able to adjust its position if necessary;
• after that, when you are sure that the tape is placed correctly, press it firmly.

Installed backlight

Now it remains only to disguise the wires and elements of the electrical circuit, after which the illumination of the glass shelves will be completed.

Conclusion

To create your own LED lighting for glass shelves, you will need a minimum of materials and time. Such work will be within the power of everyone who wants to decorate the interior of their home with such an unusual decorative local lighting.

and other lighting devices LEDs have long been the most favorite lighting equipment for consumers. After all, they have the greatest number of positive technical characteristics compared to other lighting devices. The scope of LEDs is very wide: from industry todecorative interior lighting. Very often in recent times it can be seen that with the help ofled strip or duralight resourceful owners make accent furniture lighting in their apartment. For example, a great way to make light but tangible changes in the design of a room will helpilluminated glass shelves. In order to carry out the installation of such shelves, there is no need to seek help from specialists, since the installation can be done without problems and with your own hands.

Benefits of using LED lighting

The main role of LED lighting is decorative. But besides this, accent lighting significantly affects the visual expansion of the boundaries of the room, making it more voluminous and free. Modern technologies make it possible to create very original lighting compositions, since there are LEDs of different glow colors. Also, there are more advanced types of lighting on the lighting market, in which you can change the shades as you wish (RGB tape) and control them from a distance using a radio transmitter or controller. Main advantages LED backlight are light in weight and dimensions.

In order to make glass shelves illuminated, you need anodized aluminum profile. The thickness of this element is 8 millimeters. The glass inserted into the profile allows the light to “spread” and “pour” over the edges of the surface, making the tape completely invisible. A very important feature is the absence of ultraviolet radiation, which allows you to use the backlight as additional lighting to the main one. In addition to tapes, you can also use spot lighting or modular lighting.

If there are flowers on the glass shelves, and you are afraid that the LEDs will harm them, then this is a big delusion. In fact, such light is absolutely harmless to plants.

Types of LED backlight and installation methods

Besides thatLED lighting glass shelvescan be performed independently and without difficulty, so also have different performances. Exists 4 main types of mounting : edge, traditional, backlighting from the end of the shelf (not to be confused with edge lighting) and frosted glass lighting.

• edge lighting - the tape is mounted on the other side of the holder or glued to its plane;
• traditional LED lighting- this is the illumination of objects on the shelf. In this case, it is located on the wall in the upper / lower position so that the light does not go directly into the eyes;
• installation of lighting from the end of the shelf provides a measured and uniform distribution of light from the outer end of the shelf;
• installation of lighting on frosted glass can be any of the types listed before.

LED lighting installation process

Ease of installationled stripcan be proved by a description of the whole process, which fits into 4 steps :

• cutting off an aluminum profile of the required size (a specific segment) with the further removal of all protrusions that complicate the insertion of the backlight. Important: take care of purchasing a profile in advance and remember that its thickness must match the thickness of the glass;
• drilling holes in a section of the profile for further fastening with plastic dowels or self-tapping screws. After fixing, check with a level;
• if the ends are open, then the tape very easily and simply enters a special hole (groove). If this groove is closed, then the backlight can be bent a little, and then leveled with a wooden ruler;
• the last step is to mount the glass surface in profile. You can use a rubber mallet or wooden stick to drive the glass into the profile if it is tight.

Aluminum profiles have an additionalplastic insertwhich should never be deleted. This element prevents contact between the tape and aluminum. If you get rid of the plastic insert, you will thereby provoke a short circuit.

It is obvious that all installation process These are simple technological steps that anyone can do. Main – make the correct connection of the LED element.

Commercial network "Planet Electric" has a wide range of LED devices for creating lighting, which you can familiarize yourself with

Decorative glass lighting is designed to create unusual effects in the interior: “sky” on the ceiling of an apartment, decorative “windows” in the walls, replacing a wall or part of it with a transparent luminous surface, etc. This allows you to visually expand the room, erase the boundaries between the interior and the surrounding space.

Today, most often used to illuminate panels LEDs. This is due to the combination of LEDs with several properties that are important for this kind of illumination.
LEDs are very small and do not produce infrared (thermal) radiation. This means that the LED strip allows you to easily illuminate places that are difficult to reach for other light sources, without requiring you to leave significant spaces behind the panels for lighting equipment and ventilation.
The emission of LEDs covers the entire visible part of the spectrum, allowing the implementation of various light-dynamic effects. In this case, the resulting light can be colored in a variety of color shades (it is distinguished by purity and a large number of shades). When used to illuminate elements made of frosted glass or acrylic, the light from the LED strip diffuses very well and brightly highlights these elements.

The use of converters with dimming (brightness change) will allow you to adjust the brightness of the glow. At the same time, the illumination of the panel can be controlled both manually, using the remote control, and automatically. This means that the panel (for example, playing the role of a “window”) may look different at different times: daylight will be replaced by a “starry sky”. From now on, only you decide what is outside the window: day or night!
With the help of LED strip and glass panels, you will decorate the interior and make it unique.

If you have any difficulties in choosing equipment, then you can contact our specialists for the selection of the necessary equipment for calculating the cost of backlighting.

stained glass lighting

The use of LED strip allows you not to disassemble the stained-glass window every time to replace a burned-out lamp, because it lasts up to 10 years. Another great advantage of it is absolutely even stained glass lighting when laying the LED strip "spiral".

Can be done on glass laser engraving. The light of an LED strip applied to the end of the glass panel will emphasize the engraving and give it the desired color.

Uniform illumination of frosted glass

If the walls of the room are made of frosted glass and illuminated from the inside led strip, it will be possible to create a very interesting, colorful and dynamic atmosphere. And the glow and dynamics modes can be simply switched using the RGB controller remote.

Frosted glass products can be very interesting interior design elements. For example, you can highlight frosted glass shelves with an LED strip mounted in metallic profile.

This tutorial will show you step by step how to make this beautiful one of a kind wooden shelf with LED insert. This project is very exciting and you are sure to be satisfied with your work. In general, the project does not require a lot of money, and you can even use some scrap materials that you were going to throw away. The color and brightness of the shelf illumination is controlled by an infrared remote control.

Before moving on to the rest of this project, be sure to watch the video below. From it you will learn many moments of building a shelf from start to finish.

Step 1: Parts List!

Details and materials:

• Two wooden boards of the same size
• RGB LED strip kit with IR remote control:
  https://ru.aliexpress.com/wholesale?minPrice=&maxPrice=&isBigSale=n&isFreeShip=y&isFavorite=n&isMobileExclusive=n&isLocalReturn=n&shipFromCountry=&shipCompanies=&SearchText=led+strip+rgb+set&CatId=0&g=y&SortType=total_tranpro_desc&initiative_ id=SB_20170426233019&needQuery=n&groupsort= 1&tc=af
• Acrylic sheet (or trim) 5 mm thick
• Iron extension (barrel) with double-sided external thread, 1" in diameter, 100 mm long - 4 pcs.
• 1" black iron elbow, 90 degrees, with internal thread - 2 pcs.
• Black metal threaded flange for 1" pipe for fixing to the floor - 1 pc.
• All purpose glue (or liquid nails)
• Color, paint and varnish on wood
• Self-tapping screws and other fastening consumables
• Vinegar
• Hot Glue Gun:
  https://ru.aliexpress.com/wholesale?minPrice=&maxPrice=&isBigSale=n&isFreeShip=y&isFavorite=n&isMobileExclusive=n&isLocalReturn=n&shipFromCountry=&shipCompanies=&SearchText=Pistol+with+hot+glue&CatId=0&g=y&SortType=total_tranpro_desc&initiative _id=SB_20170426233940&needQuery=n&tc= af

Note:

The bottom wood plank used in this project is a roughly cut piece of silver birch log and the top plank is pine. The paint used for the metal parts was called "Krylon - Oil Rubbed Bronze" and the wood color was called "218 puritan pine".

Step 2: Preparing the Silver Birch Plank

Since the purchased piece of silver birch wood was very rough and did not have sufficiently flat surfaces, it had to be prepared. To begin with, the ends of the board were cut off so that a length of 1 meter was obtained. Then the back end of the board was processed (lengthwise) so that it could fit snugly against the wall. The only thing that was done on the front side was the removal of the bark from the end. The unevenness of the raw face end is the main advantage of this board, which is why it was purchased. That is why this shelf looks unique!

In order to make the wooden board flat on top and bottom, I had to run it through the planer several times. If you do not have access to a planer, you can take the board to a woodworking shop, but this will incur additional costs. You may have your own thoughts on this.

Step 3. Preparing the Pine Board and Sampling the Groove

Now that the birch board has been cut to size and prepared, it is time to cut the pine board to fit the birch board. First, a pine board was cut to the same length (1 meter).

The LED strip and acrylic will be inserted between two wooden boards. It is very important that the acrylic you will be using is thicker than the height of the LED strip so that it does not get pinched between the top and bottom board.

In order to make the perfect groove for installing the LEDs and acrylic in the pine board, the router was set up so that it could only cut 5mm deep and remove 38mm from the edge on three sides (sides and back), the front side was removed 50 mm from the edge.

After cutting out the groove, the shape of the birch plank was transferred to the pine part, and the pine plank was cut with a bandsaw.

Step 4: Cutting and gluing the acrylic

Surprisingly, you won't need a lot of acrylic for this project. Thus, there is no need to buy a large sheet, small scraps can be used. In general, even strips of 1 cm wide are cut from acrylic, with the exception of the front curved part. The curved strip on the front side is cut to the shape of your board. After that, the side of the acrylic strip that will be glued to the pine was sanded with coarse sandpaper so that it would better adhere to the wood. After that, the acrylic strips were glued to the pine board and pressed well until the glue was completely dry during the night. All-purpose glue was used to glue the acrylic to the pine board (liquid nails can be used).

Attention! Acrylic strips must not be glued to the birch board!

Step 5: Bonding the Boards and Smoothing the Edges

The next day, when the glue was dry, the clips were removed and a check was made that the acrylic had stuck well and securely. In order to fasten the two boards together, six self-tapping screws will be used, and special wooden plugs will be used to hide the heads of the screws.

In order to fasten the two boards together, holes were pre-drilled in the bottom and top board with a drill of the same diameter, suitable for the size of your self-tapping screws. To drown the heads of the screws, in a pine board, at half the thickness of the board, samples were made with a slightly larger drill, the diameter of which fits the heads of the screws. Stir the screws around the perimeter of the board so that they do not fall into the groove for the LED strip.

After the holes were made, both boards were fastened together. The edges are then finished with a grinder. At the same time, sandpaper with a coarser grain was used first, and then changed to paper with a smaller grain. It is important that the front side of the birch board remains untouched, use protective materials.

Step 6: Adding an IR Receiver

The LED strip comes with a remote control which is used to change the color or brightness. This remote sends a signal to the included receiver to be hidden somewhere inside the shelf. To make room for this receiver, a hand router was used to make a nearly through cut in the birch board. Then, grooves were made in the pine board, deep enough for the thick white wires. One wire connects to the LED strip and the other to the IR receiver. The IR receiver must extend beyond the shelf to receive the signal from the remote control. To do this, a small hole was cut in the front of the pine board.

On the back of the shelf, you also need to make a small hole for the power cable.

Step 7: Installing the LEDs

After creating a place for the IR receiver, you can screw it into place and then install the LED strips. Two LED strips were laid on the sides and one along the front of the shelf. You will need extra wire and a soldering iron to connect them together, but special quick connectors can also be used. After soldering, be sure to check all connections and the performance of the LED strip.

Step 8: Cleaning and Painting the Pipes

If you have never worked with black metal pipe, then you may not know that it is very easily soiled and can get your hands dirty. In order to make it more beautiful, it must be painted, but before that it must be cleaned and degreased, pure transparent vinegar is excellent for this. When cleaning, it is recommended to use a cloth that does not leave lint, but removes plaque well. After cleaning, when the parts were completely dry, they were assembled into structures and painted with two layers of paint.

Step 9: Painting and varnishing boards, making end caps

The shelf is nearing completion. At this stage, it is necessary to apply color to the outer sides of the boards and varnish them, and also make wooden plugs for holes for self-tapping screws.

After the wooden parts are dry, they are twisted into a single shelf, and wooden plugs are inserted into the holes over the heads of the self-tapping screws. The plugs are not specially glued because in the future it may be necessary to replace the LEDs or electronic components, in which case the shelf will be easy to disassemble. You can use a cotton swab to tint the plugs in place.

Step 10: Finished!

Now, it remains only to add pipe mounts and attach to the wall. This shelf is very heavy, so it is highly recommended to use strong fasteners.

It is also recommended to hide the power wire behind the wall, if possible. Thanks to this, the shelf will look much more aesthetically pleasing. Your guests will never guess that this shelf can also glow.

Unfortunately, the power cord from the driver is very short, so you will have to extend it further or place the socket in the immediate vicinity of the shelf.

That's all. Thanks for reading and watching! Good luck!