Akihabara Station

[CaptOblivious]

Small update:

http://akihabara.artificial-science.org/2012/10/15/trompe-loeil-pt-2/

 

In this one, I play some more with the trompe l'oeil image. Still not sure what I will do for the marquee. I'm wondering if I could use a small linear-magnifying lens, like the kind used for examining cross-stich patterns., and use that in reverse to take a larger LED marquee and make it look smaller. Seems a real long shot, but I am resisting the idea of having just a static image, or something on rollers.

[KenS]

I like the basic concept of what you're doing. Printed patterns on acetate should be fairly long-lived, particularly if you can do the final ones with a color laser, rather than ink-jet, printer.  I'm not sure how compatible the photo-ink-jet inks would be with plastic, but those are fairly long-lived (in indoor use) in terms of color stability so they could be okay.  I'd be worried about ordinary ink-jet ink holding its color though.  None of that is an issue for a black mask, but for a subtle pattern like brick, color shifts are going to be noticable.

 

If you do use a laser for the final copy, remember that not all transparency sheets are compatible with lasers due to the heated "fuser" step of the process.  Some will melt onto the drum (I saw that happen at work once; not a cheap repair).

 

I don't have any novel ideas for the marquee.  I'm in the strip-and-rollers camp myself.  Sometimes low-tech is the right answer. Think of it as a learning opportunity.  And consider that "strip and rollers" with some short lengths of color-changing EL wire/tape as a backlight synchronized to it could have an interesting look.

[cteno4]

capt,

 

the laserprint transparency sheets work very well and its reasonably priced for a box. only trouble is that i doubt it would work for a mask totally with a bright light. but would probably work with a few layers of the mask. ill have to play with it some. there is inkjet versions that have a coating that lets the ink drops dry w/o bleeding too much, but i agree with ken that w/o archival inks you are just asking for fading. toner is a lot stabler and thicker as well.

 

another thought came to mind if you are just hating the idea of the strip and rollers would be to use fiber optics. use the small plastic stuff and wire that to a larger led matrix. big problem is the connections. would need to build it on a bigger chunk that would then drop in on the layout to hold the board or allow the led board and structure with its connecting fiberoptics come off that board (with a slot for the fiberoptics to come through).

 

might not be so horrible to do actually. just drill the matrix of holes in your strip and attach the fiber optic ends through then just glue or heat shrink the other ends onto the leds on the board. the plastic stuff transmits pretty well for a foot or two.

 

this is my plan for my chase leds on my movie theatre. its an 8 light chase circuit and ill just repeat it so that it looks like several following each other around the marquee. my first thought was like yours to use 401s behind tiny holes in the marque an fill the holes with gallery glass. but when i looked at how hard it would be to wire in like 80 of these i decided it was a bit crazy that way.

 

more thinking on the strip and rollers, you could sandwich the strip in the front between two pieces of clear plastic. this could help keep it very flat and stable as its displayed (in a little track sort of). one worry is how to keep the printing on the strip though, all that mechanical action seems like it would pop stuff off like toner or inkjet. im thinking emulsion and film to keep it on there and even then make a bunch of them at once to have backups as it just screams of something that will break or degrade in some way along the line...

 

jeff

[KenS]

If the printing is on one side (and it should be), you could use an L-bracket along the top and bottom to hold the other side flush against a strip of plastic on one face.  You just wouldn't want the printed side to rub on anything except at those edges.  And I think that's true of emulsion too; it's just a coating on a plastic substrate, and can rub off just like printer toner. You might get some irregularity in the middle, but probably not enough to notice from any reasonable viewing distance.

[cteno4]

yeah it could use a U channel on top and bottom. just wondering if it would bow under the belt pressure at all. best what you would want would be a strip of projection film with sprockets, but thats not going to happen in those spaces and who wants to cut 500 sprocket holes?! (sprocket, now theres a term you dont get to use much!)

 

all this talk makes me want to go fiddle with this idea, but too much else to do right now...

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

No access to a laser printer anymore (miss my old Apple Laserwriter IIg!). The transparency (I've ordered special stuff for inkjets) will only have black on it, /maybe/ some color to tint the light in places. The vellum is where the color image will be. The printer is an Epson WorkForce 845 which is a photo printer. I've heard good things about the long-term stability of Epson inks, which is one of the reasons I bought this printer. But if not, then I'll just have to design it so that I can replace the printed bits easily ;)

 

Lighting will be through multiple carefully placed low-power LEDs, no bright bulbs or anything.

[CaptOblivious]

Fiber optics, eh? Now you've really got me thinking. Could do a real marquee that way, possibly even as much as a 4-pixel vertical resolution! Hrm…I've got the drill bits, do I have the patience…

[cteno4]

if you have access to a mill or an xy table you could drill the hole matrix pretty easily. patience to attach up all those pieces of fiber optics though! probably need to fiddle with the best way to end the fiber optic strands to glow the best for this sort of display and give a good angle on the view.

 

would let you have the ultimate control! sure there are matrixes already out there cheaper you could string together with your own driver.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

Latest, smallish, update: Success printing to vellum.

 

http://akihabara.artificial-science.org/2012/11/12/printing-to-vellum-qualified-success/

[disturbman]

Smallish updates are always better than no progress. ;)

[cteno4]

capt,

 

wonder if putting the glue thru the fuser roller made it permanent? its pretty hot.

 

i think thats why some of the transparency sheets have the little white painted strip on the side.

 

hmm going to have to try some vellum! harder to get these days not so used anymore. love the feel of the stuff. i use to have to do all sorts of exhibit overlays when i was a kid at the aquarium. first pass at an idea would be to take the plan and trace out a new areas on it or trace off single layers of engineering elements. event though the architecture and engineering firm was just starting to do some cad it took forever to get a request thru them and a product back and cost a fortune. better to pay the kid $7.50/hr to go at it. you know monkeys at typewriters and all.

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

capt,

 

wonder if putting the glue thru the fuser roller made it permanent? its pretty hot.

 

Mine's an inkjet. The rollers are quite cold!

 

i think thats why some of the transparency sheets have the little white painted strip on the side.

 

Very definitely why they do, and where I got the idea from. I wasn't sure if a single strip would work, so I went for overkill.

 

hmm going to have to try some vellum! harder to get these days not so used anymore. love the feel of the stuff. i use to have to do all sorts of exhibit overlays when i was a kid at the aquarium. first pass at an idea would be to take the plan and trace out a new areas on it or trace off single layers of engineering elements. event though the architecture and engineering firm was just starting to do some cad it took forever to get a request thru them and a product back and cost a fortune. better to pay the kid $7.50/hr to go at it. you know monkeys at typewriters and all.

 

jeff

 

Vellum is fun, and the stuff I got is specially meant for use in inkjet printers (aside from the whole translucency playing havoc with the jam sensor thing), and it takes the ink beautifully.

[cteno4]

sorry wrong thread where we were talking laser printers with acetate!

 

will be interesting to see your translucency results with the backlighting.

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

On a slightly different topic: First attempts at using EL lighting to light station platforms:

http://akihabara.artificial-science.org/2012/11/27/el-experiments-platform-lighting-feasibility-study/

[cteno4]

Capt,

 

bummer the el came out so blue! the lighting effect is very much a fluorescent look though! wonder if its just that supplier of the tape or all whites come out a tad blue with el.

 

where is the hum at the transformer or at the light? this is one downside for me personally. for some reason i still have my high freq hearing and still hear the transformers in many things like transformers, young whipper snappers cell phone pingers, etc (i can still hear a cathode ray fly transformer from a long long way off!).

 

still tempted to get a wire kit and play with it some! controller looks fun and an interesting addition to nmranet. the miller engineering signs are all over the place and might add a new dimension to their stuff as well. like the idea of being able to do that fluorescent or neon flicker of something on the flitz once and a while!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Capt, for sharing your results !

 

I've never seen any E/L in person but some of the miller signs look as though they have white. With the wire, maybe you can have multiple strands to increase the light.

 

I'm planning to get a few bits n' pieces of E/L to experiment with. The one cool aspect of this lighting is how small it is.

 

Maybe multiple colors of wire will result in something closer to white or maybe the addition of one or 2 LEDs just to boost the main effect.

 

Thanks again for your post... its getting lonely here on the forum...

[disturbman]

Yes, thanks, it's a really interesting experiment. I quite liked that blue light, it gave a feeling of deep and lonely night.

 

Also, that Fresh Hitachi looks awesome photographed like that.

[KenS]

Although I haven't bought any yet, I've done a bit of reading and thinking about it.  With wire, which is different from the tape, there's at least two kinds of "white".  The original looks white when not lit, and used a colored jacket to make it look more white when lit (I think the native color was bluer), and the new kind looks pink when not lit, but glows with a whiter color than the old kind.

 

I've been meaning to get some and play with it, for much the same reason as Don: platform lighting.  I've got about 26' (8m) of platform to light, and that's very expensive if I do it with LED strip lights.  It's rather disheartening that the tape didn't work, as I don't think the wire is going to have the quantity of light output I want.

[Darklighter]

I've got about 26' (8m) of platform to light, and that's very expensive if I do it with LED strip lights.

Did you check ebay? I have bought lots of LED strips for 1€/m there (+free shipping).

[Hobby Dreamer]

Hi Capt..

 

I went by my hardware store and found this:

 

http://www.bazz.ca/en/product/292/

 

they did not have the adhesive one on display but the other type of LED strip lighting had the same remote that allowed one to change colour and brightness. In the store it looked impressive and the white was reasonable. The other strip was 1/4" thick but I could not find the thickness for the tape.

 

It looks as though you can cut this to any length..

 

It might be expensive compared to other lighting but the one I was looking at had 3 12" strips that could be changed to about 20 colours and there seemed to be other effect such as brightness control.

 

They also sell white without the colour change ability and that seems decently price.

 

Just a thought..

Rick

[hectorton]

Costco in the U.S. is carrying the flat strip one with the adhesive backing in 8' lengths for $30.00.  A bit pricey, but bought two a couple of days ago and going back for one more.

[WuZhuiQiu]

Perhaps, in a couple of years, this lighting technology might also become available for hobby applications:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553143

[CaptOblivious]

Perhaps, in a couple of years, this lighting technology might also become available for hobby applications:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553143

 

WuZhuiQiu, that is a really awesome! Looking forward to see what this new turn in technology yields!

[quinntopia]

Lot's of great suggestions on using printers and transparency sheets up above! I have (sometimes painful!) experiences with all of those suggestion and they are all right on! 

 

For LED's, I have become an absolute fan of these rolls of LED's from China

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3528-Led-Strip-Light-300-leds-5M-pure-white-lamp-white-PCB-flexible-ribbon-SMD-/170774002192?pt=US_Car_Lighting&hash=item27c2ec7a10

 

Absolutely wonderful to work with and the price is pretty incredible compared to what you pay for anything off the shelf here in the states.  They are also really effective as 'backlighting' behind strips of styrene (thin strips!) which you can then use plain old printer paper on to get the lit sign look.  The biggest drawback is that the fiber texture of traditional printer paper seems obvious (to me)in this fashion, but I've yet to find a synthetic type of paper that can handle the heat of my laser printer (I've taken it apart to unwrap all sorts of paper that shouldn't have been put through!  ).

[Hobby Dreamer]

Hi Quin!

 

Are there any concerns about heat? How do you power this? And, can you cut this into multiple small strips and use all the strips?

 

The lighting I found, (above thread), seems not to be hot and the colour and brightness can be changed. Maybe a cool thing for a station but the white light you post seems excellent for everything..

 

With shipping and duty how would this compare to the best prices here?

 

Rick