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Step 5Demolding and remolding
After the epoxy cured, I simply broke the wax away from the epoxied connectors. At this point, after soldering the LEDs to the brass terminals, I cut them down as close as I could to the epoxy.
I apologize for being remiss, but I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of the next step...
Once the epoxy had cured and the connectors were demolded, I soldered positive wires to the brass terminals and two two finishing nails that I cut to be short enough to fit entirely within the outlet side connector. I then drilled two holes on either side of the magnet on the outlet connector (the one without the LEDs) almost all the way through. I then drilled a small diameter hole just large enough to fit the nails, through the rest of the connector. The nails were inserted into these holes and end up about 5-7 mm from the end of the connector. This depth prevents the energized nails from accidentally contacting and energizing anything else. I felt this was important given the propensity of the magnets to stick to anything ferrous. While it would probably create a short and blow a fuse before starting a fire, I didn't want to take that chance.
Now the connectors are pretty much done, but all the positive soldered terminals (and the loose nails) are still exposed on the wire sides of the connectors. To cover these, I drilled a 1/2" through hole in the wax block and shaped the bottom side to fit the wire side (where I just soldered all the positive connections) of the connectors. I also did a little extra shaping of the hole to make the epoxy taper up to the 1/2" hole . The bottom of the wax block, with the two connectors sticking out (almost all the way) was then sealed with melted wax (or so I thought!), and epoxy was poured into the 1/2" hole on the top.
As it turned out, the holes for the two nails leaked like a seive and all the epoxy ran out the bottom. This also filled the holes I had created for the nail terminals :( It was a bummer. In the end, I just waited until the epoxy firmed up and then added it back in. When I demolded the connectors the second time I had to redrill the holes for the positive terminals, but in the end it worked out fine. I would suggest somehow sealing the nail heads with very thick epoxy prior to putting them in the second mold.
In the second picture you can see the 1/2" round of epoxy (just to the left of the note box) that covers the positive terminals on the back side of the connector. The computer side connector is similar, but does not have a clay cone to shape it down to the wires (clay cone not show for this connector, but is almost identical to the previous one). I'll live, though, and it provides more exposed epoxy for the LEDs to shine through.
I apologize for being remiss, but I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of the next step...
Once the epoxy had cured and the connectors were demolded, I soldered positive wires to the brass terminals and two two finishing nails that I cut to be short enough to fit entirely within the outlet side connector. I then drilled two holes on either side of the magnet on the outlet connector (the one without the LEDs) almost all the way through. I then drilled a small diameter hole just large enough to fit the nails, through the rest of the connector. The nails were inserted into these holes and end up about 5-7 mm from the end of the connector. This depth prevents the energized nails from accidentally contacting and energizing anything else. I felt this was important given the propensity of the magnets to stick to anything ferrous. While it would probably create a short and blow a fuse before starting a fire, I didn't want to take that chance.
Now the connectors are pretty much done, but all the positive soldered terminals (and the loose nails) are still exposed on the wire sides of the connectors. To cover these, I drilled a 1/2" through hole in the wax block and shaped the bottom side to fit the wire side (where I just soldered all the positive connections) of the connectors. I also did a little extra shaping of the hole to make the epoxy taper up to the 1/2" hole . The bottom of the wax block, with the two connectors sticking out (almost all the way) was then sealed with melted wax (or so I thought!), and epoxy was poured into the 1/2" hole on the top.
As it turned out, the holes for the two nails leaked like a seive and all the epoxy ran out the bottom. This also filled the holes I had created for the nail terminals :( It was a bummer. In the end, I just waited until the epoxy firmed up and then added it back in. When I demolded the connectors the second time I had to redrill the holes for the positive terminals, but in the end it worked out fine. I would suggest somehow sealing the nail heads with very thick epoxy prior to putting them in the second mold.
In the second picture you can see the 1/2" round of epoxy (just to the left of the note box) that covers the positive terminals on the back side of the connector. The computer side connector is similar, but does not have a clay cone to shape it down to the wires (clay cone not show for this connector, but is almost identical to the previous one). I'll live, though, and it provides more exposed epoxy for the LEDs to shine through.
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