light up logo plates? how do they make those?

[fish22]

So Im sure everyone is familiar with Morgan, Matchless, Badcat etc that have the light up logo plates.

Anybody know how they are doing that?
I have one of the amps mentioned above and it has vellum paper on the back of the badge part to diffuse the light.
I'm assuming its a laser cut/engraved piece to cut away the black to reveal clear?

Curious to try to make one for my own build..
Thanks!

Wyatt

[John_P_WI]

At my day job we do it all the time by silksreening the 2nd surface (back side) of polycarbonate or glass and then back light. LEDs can be problamatic as a light source as they are a point source and can be difficult to diffuse.

[Colossal]

It you take black-engraves-to-white plastic and removed a few thousandths (all of the black surface) to reveal the white layer below, the material is thin enough such that it can be backlit with an LED array or #44 incandescent lamp. That's one way of doing it.

[xtian]

Panelcraftinc.com does a black cap, clear core material, lasered to your design, and then you can back-fill the clear with paint to get as many colors as you want on the same panel!

[Smokebreak]

I just worked one of the amps mentioned in the first post. The backlight #44 was mounted to the inside of the pine cab via a bracket. I'm not sure how the amp even was still working, honestly, as one leg of the 6.3V came loose from a term strip, shorted somewhere, and both legs were all puffed up and burnt. Looked like the Hulk! The bulb was burnt, but so was the cab where the metal bracket attached. It had literally woodburnt the pine.

[teemuk]

It you take black-engraves-to-white plastic and removed a few thousandths (all of the black surface) to reveal the white layer below, the material is thin enough such that it can be backlit with an LED array or #44 incandescent lamp.

Transparent panels are engraved too but instead of using backlight the beams of light are pointed to the side of the panel. The transparent parts of the panel will pass light sans interruption while engraved parts will refract it and effectively illuminate the engraved parts.

[Aurora]

If the panel is thick enough, smaller LEDs or bulbs can be sunk into the side, behind the covered sections.

[Structo]

Like this?


[img:480:360]http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OXlx3JBFeVg/hqdefault.jpg[/img]'

[img:360:360]http://img.remastersys.com/nimg/06/63/3 ... _6_5cm.jpg[/img]

Or have a opaque panel with just the logo or letters light up?


Also there is different colors of plexiglas.

[img:533:427]http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00sS ... ST-01-.jpg[/img]

[dorrisant]

May not apply... I've been doing this with pedals for a while. This one has a maple/mahogany cap over it but you can see how the LEDs are mounted. 9/64" hole drilled into the plastic, shove the LEDs in the holes. The edge, or whatever is carved into the plastic will glow. BTW... This example has color changing LEDs.

[R.G.]

Basically anything that makes light convert from orthogonal to diffuse at a boundary, or mask off a diffuse backlight.

The simplest way is probably to silk screen or laser etch an opaque surface layer off a backlit panel.

There is a variety of plexiglass specifically designed to convert edge lighting to a uniform backlight glow. That makes it easy.