Introduction: DIY Altoids Infinity Mirror

By Toymaker Television
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I've never made an infinity mirror before, much less owned one, and thought it was much more complex than it actually was. So during the Deconstruction 2014 (a global hackathon-ish sort of thing), one of our projects became this altoids infinity mirror!

What you need:

  • Altoids Tin
  • Mirror that can fit into altoids tin (you may need to cut your own)
  • 1 way mirror (we used a filter from an old projector)
  • LEDs or Chibitronics LED stickers
  • Electrical Tape + Double-sided Tape
  • 5v power supply (wall wart) with its power jack cut off

Tools you may need:

  • Mouse Sander
  • Dremel tool w/metal cutting wheel
  • Tin Snips
  • Drill Press
  • Files/steel wool

Step 1: Cut Your Mirror Down to Size and Tape It Down

For the mirror, we used a glass cutter to score it.

  • We clamped the glass down and using fairly significant pressure, scored the mirror.
  • We then used the back of the glass cutter (what looked like a ball) to gently tap the mirror. It split fairly easily!

Note, when cutting it, make sure to allow enough space on the sides of the mirror for your lid to close!

  • Apply a piece of double-sided tape inside of the altoids cover and tape in the mirror.
  • We decided to put the mirror on the Altoid side so that we could still keep the Altoid graphic

Step 2: Prepare the Box for the Double Sided Mirror

  • Using a mouse sander we sanded off the nutrition facts for a nice silver-y surface. We also sanded it with some 000 steel wool to get a better polish. A lot easier than we thought it'd be!
  • We traced the shape of the filter/other mirror on the box and drew box inside of that one with a 1.5mm border.
    • The border is important because that was where we put the super glue to keep the filter in place.

Step 3: Establish the Power/ground Rails

Since the altoids tin is conductive, we used it as the ground plane. But this required that we isolate the positive power rail from ground.

  • Put electrical tape around the inside of the tin but below the edge by around 1.5mm - just enough for your LED/chibitronic LED negative leg.
  • Put Chibitronic copper tape over the electrical tape, also around the inside of the tin. If you're using Chibitronic LED stickers (as I did), you'll want to make sure the positive leg of the LED can reach the copper tape.

Step 4: Add Your LEDs + Final Touches

  • We used Chibitronic LEDs around the edge. Again the + side of the LED attached to the copper tape and the - side attached to the ground plane of the tin. I believe we used 8 LEDs.
  • We then soldered the + side of the wall wart to the copper tape and the - side of the wall wart to the tin.
  • We drilled a hole for the wall wart cord to go through, but if you need to give the cord more room, just use a pair of tin snips to adjust it!

Step 5: Enjoy!

And voila! The fun thing about using a projector filter is that depending on which way you turn it, you end up with a different spectrum of colors! Hope you enjoy it!