Introduction: How to Make an Infinity Mirror Box

What you'll need

Access to a laser cutter - You'll really need this because most parts are made with a laser cutter.

Access to a soldering kit – You’ll really need a soldering kit. If you don’t have one or don’t have access to one you should probably buy one anyway if you want to make other technical stuff.

Wood - It really depends how big you want the box to be, the bigger the box the more wood you’ll need of course.

5 Mirrors - This one should be obvious you’ll need 5 mirrors because the underside of the box won’t have a mirror.

LED strips - Again this really depends on how big the box is, but we used around 2 meters in total. The LED strips can be any colour you want, but I recommend getting RBG ones so you can adjust the colour.

Perspex - You’ll need the same size Perspex as your mirrors. For example if you have 15 cm by 15 cm mirrors as we did you’ll also need this size Perspex.

Wires - You’ll need some kind of wires to be able to connect the different LED strips together. I recommend using different coloured wires so you can colour code them, but this isn’t strictly necessary.

Adhesive - You’ll need some kind of adhesive to stick a lot of the different parts together, we used bison kit, but any other strong adhesive should be fine to work with. Note that some adhesives may damage the mirrors so check if this is the case before you use it.

Car window tint film - This is what makes the infinity mirror infinity. This film reflects around half of the light that passes through it, this makes it so that it is perfect for an infinity mirror. You can also use similar films as long as itreflects but is also see through.

Step 1: The Inner Box

Go to http://boxmaker.connectionlab.org/ and use the measurements of the mirrors you want to use to make a box. Each side of the box should be about as big as a mirror so you can easily glue the mirrors to the box. When you’ve designed the box you’ll have cut it out with a laser cutter. When this is done you only have to glue the sides of the box together and you have a box that’ll serve as the base to the infinity mirror box.

Step 2: The Frames

You’ll need to design some frames for the LED strips to stick to. Again the frames should be as big as the mirrors, so in my case 15 by 15 centimetres. I'm going to attach our coraldraw designs so you can use them and change them however you want to. The frames should be as thick as the LED strips, but if you don’t have thick enough wood for that like I did, you can stack multiple frames on top of each other and glue them together to make one big frame. You’ll need around 5 frames, one for each mirror. You’ll also need to drill or cut holes in each frame so you can lead the wires and LED strips through, preferably at the bottom so you can easily connect al of the wires at the end at the bottom of the box.

Step 3: The Double Sided Plexiglas

You’ll need to cut out 5 perspex plates which should be the same size as the mirrors you’re using. When you’ve done that you need to apply a roll of car window tint film to each one.To apply it you firstly need to make the perspex wet with some soapy water and then firmly apply the film. You can push out any bubbles with for example a credit card.

Step 4: Assembling the Infinity Mirrors.

You firstly need to stick the frames on the mirrors. When that’s done you need to cut the LED strips to the right length and stick them inside of the frame. Most LED strips are sticky of themselves but I’ve found that they don’t stick very well so you might want to consider using adhesive so they won’t fall off. You need to make sure that a few centimetres of the strip sticks out of the hole you made in the frame so you can later connect it. When the strips are in place you’ll need to glue the Perspex plates unto the frames. Make sure the side with the film is in on the inside of the infinity mirror, because this looks a lot cleaner. Congratulations if you’ve done everything correctly you should have five infinity mirrors. Good job!

Step 5: Sticking the Mirrors to the Box

Here comes the tricky part. You need to glue Each infinity mirror to the core box you’ve already made in advance. You need to do this very carefully because if you do this wrong you’ll either have to redo it because it won't fit at all or have a box that isn’t as neat as you want it to be. If you’ve done it right the inner box should be completely covered in mirrors.

Step 6: Soldering the Wires

Now you need to solder wires unto all of the LED strips and connect them all. This may sound easy but it may take a lot of time if you’re not very good at soldering. You can take it up a notch and connect each strip differently so that each different sides of the infinity mirror have different colours, this gives it a cool effect but isn’t necessary. You now have a working infinity mirror box, but it probably doesn’t look very good.

Step 7: Making It Pretty

You’ll need to design an outer box. You need to measure the length of each side of the box you’ve made and make the outer box that size. Each side should have a hole in it the exact same shape and size of the infinity mirror. You have to kind of push the sides unto the infinity mirror box like a puzzle and make it fit. If you want you can paint the outer frame however you like, but you don't have to of course. If you did step 5 right it should all fit perfectly.