I made a Giant Lite Brite for Instructables that has over 1,100 self healing holes and hundreds of multi-colored pegs that go inside and light up. It's an improved upon version of the original toy, at super-human size! Create any picture you can imagine in amazing 30 x 37 peg resolution!
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Signing UpStep 1: Gather materials
The Giant Lite Brite is made from:
All of the acrylic was purchased from Tap Plastics.
The rest of the pieces can be purchased at Home Depot or your local hardware store.
- two 40" x 40"panels of clear acrylic 1/8" sheet
- one 40" x 40" panel of black acrylic 1/8" sheet
- one 37" x 7" panel of orange acrylic 1/8" sheet
- many feet (over 100') of colored acrylic rod (fluorescent colors work best)
- three fluorescent light fixtures and bulbs
- two 110 volt ac cooling fans (McMaster-Carr 1976K14)
- several square feet of 1/16" santoprene rubber (McMaster-Carr 86215K22)
- a good quality rubber cement designed for one-sided application. If you can get your hands on some Devcon Industrial Rubber Adhesive 14900, go fir it, it seems to work a bit better then other types.
- assorted nuts, bolts, and wood screws
- one 4' x 8' sheet of 3/4" sanded plywood
- scrap 1" x 1" for supports
All of the acrylic was purchased from Tap Plastics.
The rest of the pieces can be purchased at Home Depot or your local hardware store.
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1. The pitch for the holes ("holes spaced an inch apart") does not match the file provided to have the rubber cut (exactly 1.04" spacing in both directions). That sounds minor but the mismatch accumulates across the panel until there is no overlap between holes and plus signs in the rubber.
2. Cost is higher than it sounds initially. The rubber is $8/sq ft plus shipping and water jet cutting rubber cost me $205 (12 sheets stacked and cut at once) and I only got that price after calling around extensively. Laser cutting quotes came in as high as $700 because they had to do it four sheets at a time and some refused the job despite my assurances that this rubber does "play nicely with laser cutters". Each peg costs 50 cents plus shipping (from TAP, 1/2 inch rods in 6' lengths) and that assumes you cut them into pegs and polish and/or torch smooth the ends yourself. The fans specified are $50 each (I went cheaper), the glue, the black acrylic is around $100/sheet, the CNC setup and machining is $70/hour, light fixtures $20-30 each x two or three, 4.5" hole saw plus arbor was $50 where I could find it locally, etc. Get a quote for all material, labor and shipping from every vendor in advance if you might be concerned about cost.
3. The *.cdr file in the article isn't accepted by job shops so I download the free CorelDraw X5 demo and saved As DXF. I would have been better to draw my own array of plus signs, or at least check dimensions twice and cut once to avoid issue #1 above.
4. Tools: Also, you'll need a good table saw for long grooves and bevels. And a miter saw for chopping all the acrylic rods.
5. Peg color selection is limited. In October 2011, I couldn't find half inch extruded acrylic fluorescent rods online in very many fluorescent colors. Yellow does light up as does clear but there is a strong brightness mismatch between fluorescent and not if you try blacklight as lighting instead. Never mind hand-painted blue ones. Some fluorescent blue ones look clear on the side and blue only on the circular tip.
6. The 3/4" plywood back makes it a lot heavier. I switched to a thin back panel.
GREAT instructable! :D (thats actually the biggest smiley i can do with ASCII).
A great browser by Google and an even better song by Trace Atkins!
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Thanks for telling me, one day (if I save up a few $100), I might build this. Its awsome!