Introduction: LED Heart Plaque

By Naeem Wilson
About: Hello people of the internet and makers. My name is Naeem, and I am an engineer and maker myself.I am currently a Fab Steward at the South End Tech Center in Boston. I mostly make everything and anything I can…

At work my co workers and I were tasked with making light up plaques in order to learn how to code rgb led's. I, like always, wanted to take things a step further and make something fancy. With my strange heart obsession, i decided to make a dripping heart plaque that changed colors depending on my mood (different shades of blue). To do so, I had lasercut all the parts and coded the lights with an arduino redboard.

Parts/ Things used:

- Laser Cutter
- Arduino Redboard
- Neopixel (or any rgb led should work)
- frosted or clear acrylic
- 1/8 plywood (for the frame)
- computer (for the designing)

Step 1: Design

The plaque is made up of different layers to the heart. Each layer was designed on Libre office draw and Inkscape, but any vector drawing program could be used.

Step 2: Lasercutting

Once the files were made, I sent them to our laser cutter. I cut on frosted clear acrylic, and the settings were:

Power: 60
Speed: 19
Rate: 4000

Step 3: Assembly Pt.1

With the pieces cut, I had lined up all of the pieces and held them together with a wooden dowel in each hole.

Step 4: Candy Cane Break (Why Not?)

Take this time to eat a candy cane or any other treats around just for the heck of it.

Step 5: Coding

Now its time for you to grab out that redboard (or any other arduino controller that works) and code it. Im still figuring out how to code it, but I got the example code running to see it in action.

Step 6: Make a Frame + Assembly Pt 2

I laser cut the frame out of 1/8 plywood. I started with the ribs and then made the frame into a cover. Everything fit snugly (assembly above)

Step 7: Now With Nothing Left to Do, Watch It Glow

Now I just ran the example code in a dark area and watched as my heart melted (because nothing screams romance like a melting colorful heart)

Step 8: Future Plans

I plan to add a battery pack and an arduino gemma when I have the time to.

Using a battery pack would allow mw to place the plaque anywhere. with the reboard alone, I was only able to place it within a usb cables length.

The gemma does the same as the redboard as far as coding goes, but it takes up way less space (which is really good).

When these are done, I shall return with an updated instructable. Thank you for viewing.