Another DIY poster/marquee light-box - Page 5

Very nice, Cuzed. You have me brainstorming and thinking of changing my entire approach.

I have a question for you. I was planning on powering with a 12v/5amp power brick (from ebay). How are you powering this and if you have a brick, where is it located?

Very nice post.

Great final write up/parts list. I'm hoping to finish my 2 frames tonight, and start 2 more this weekend. Pictures to follow!

Sure does, Cuzed. Thanks.

What I'm doing is making one for my sister-in-law for her birthday. She will be my guinea pig for light box creation, but don't tell her! She and my brother will be finishing their bonus room this summer and she absolutely LOVES the movie Amelie. I picked up a double sided poster and want to make a light box. Because of the application this will be "portable." I don't think they'll be hard wiring this in, but I think it would go well in their bonus room, once finished (I hope!).

Thus I plan on having the power brick inside with just the smallish cord exiting out the bottom and plugged into the wall. I'll figure something out, I'm sure.

Yes!

I would recommend against putting the brick inside the actual box.

I am keeping mine out and simply making a longer wire run out of the box down to floor level to plug these in the wall with the brick on the floor. Not aesthetically my first choice but necessary.

You could probably put it in the top of the box with "slits" cut into the top of the box for ventilation. Still may get a little warm but would be better than just popping it in there w/o vents.

Greg

Adding to that...

Heat is as bad for posters as UV light. Posters exposed to heat will fade quickly at much lower levels of light. This is one of the reasons I went with LED, rather than flourescent or conventional rope light.

Duly noted. Thanks, guys.

Hey Guys,

I felt it's time that I chimed in. I don't like to bother my customers when they start a thread about my frames, everyone who buys from me knows they can always contact me anytime.

I just wanted to say Thank You for all of your business and kind words about Spotlight Displays, it means a lot!

And I just wanted to add; don't put expensive posters in any light box for extended periods as previously mentioned. That is the great thing about the frames, you can change the posters in and out with ease.

Great thread Craig!

Semper Fi,

Robert Perry

Well I finally got my 5 built this w/e (some long hours). They are not hung yet but I am going to try and get to that in the next day or 2 (gotta get through tax season first).

My builds went much much faster for these last 4 then the "prototype" did. Prototype took me at least 5-6 hours. These last 4 probably 10-12 hours total.

Pretty happy with the results and honestly I am not sure I could have done anything different except perhaps the power connection but that is more an issue that I do not have a way to hide the wire in the wall vs dangling down under the frame .. oh well.

I only snapped one pic at the moment but will attempt to do more later as this only shows the frame lit up. I will say this the Wall-E poster is a really awesome looking one when lit up like this. The blue is very vibrant and the image just looks superb. The other poster that I did that turned out really well is the Toy Story 3 one with all the toys surrounding the big 3 in the middle -- this image just pops right out at you.

I think cuzed nailed it with the 4 strands of LEDS, anything less would not have looked right IMHO. I would also like to add that the LED strips were a perfect method for lighting. I have a box I got from someone else and they used florescent tubes, I also tried some rope light I had laying around and neither of them looked as good as these strips.

I want to thank him and jayn_j for posting their plans, pics, and ideas in this thread as I used them as my guide to build my own. I changed things a little bit but overall it was their idea. So thanks!!

Greg

Can't wait for the build/rest of the pictures. That poster looks fantastic.

Looks great! I've been making my write up in my spare time at work (text is almost done, but I want to take some more pictures). I've got 2 completed and the frames done for the second 2 just need to wire and LED them. My other 2 frames came in from Spotlight as well. If I can get the wife to give me a break (I've spent my last 2 weekends painting our theater room and dining room) Hopefully I can get everything finished up this weekend.

Where did you buy that 1/16 inch diffusor panel?
I will post pictures soon of my three lightboxes that i made. They turned pretty cool thanks to all the ideas from here.

Here's my write up (be warned there is a lot of pictures!!!) Let me know if anything is unclear.

Parts List (This is to make 1 frame setup):
- Your Favorite movie poster
- Spotlight Wide Boarder Frame
- 2 pcs 1x2 popular boards, 6' Long
- 1 sheet 4'x8' 5.0mm multipurpose plywood (This is enough for 3 frames)
- 3M Metal Duct Tape (3 wide)
- 1 Can of white spray paint
- 1 quart of black paint (optional, I had some left over from my screen)
- 1 & ¼ Wood Screws
- 20m of Led stripes (I purchased mine in 5m increments, again DO NOT solder together in series as you will see a voltage drop and dimming on the final 2 strips)
- 5V Power supply
- Power Supply Adapter
- Thin gauge wire (black & red) I used 22 ga
- Picture hanging wire and I-hooks
- MonkeyHangers (These things are slick!, but they are optional, any standard picture hangers should work, need 2 per frame)
- Insteon Controlled Power Outlets (optional)
- Wiremold paintable wire covers (optional)


Tools:
- Drill
- Table/Panel Saw (If you want to cut the wood for yourself, I had Lowes do it for me)
- Kreg Jig
- Paint brush
- Soldering Iron

Assembly
1. Cut each 6' 1x2 into the following: One board 41.75 long and one board 27.25 long (I had Lowes cut these for me)
2. Assemble your basic frame with the boards you just cut. Place the shorter 27.25 boards on the insides of the of the 41.75 board. You want the 1 side all facing up or out as they would be in the frame. I used the kreg jig to do this (see pictures below) with just screws. You can do this however you want (nails, old fashion screws and glue, corner or angle braces, duct tape, etc.), however keep in mind that you will be inserting screws into both of the 1 faces to attach your spotlight frame and your ply wood backing.



3. Cut your plywood panel into sections that are 41.75 by 28.75. This should be sized perfectly to the frame you just built. (I had Lowes cut this for me as well, you should be able to get 3 of these panels + scrap out of the 4' x 8' sheet) Do not attach the back to the frame yet.
4. Spray paint one side of the plywood panel white (I did 2 coats). This helps with the reflectivity of the inside of your light box to make sure that you get as much light as possible through your poster.
5. While your back panel is drying take your 3M reflective tape and wrap the inside of the frame. Again this just helps with reflectivity. Be careful with this tape as it feels like tinfoil, but it is MUCH sharper. I got a good paper cut on one of my index fingers from this guy. I cut my tape slightly longer than the inside parts of the frame and just folder it over the sides.


6. Now it's time to marry the reflective frame that you have built to the spray painted white panel. Lay your frame on your work bench, floor, or whatever surface you are working on, then lay your rear panel (white side down) on top of it. Starting in one corner drill and screw the back panel to the frame working away from the first corner ensuring that you are removing and bows/light gaps between the 2 as you go. I ended up putting 5-6 screws down each long side and 4 across the top and bottom. Over kill for just screwing, but it helps eliminate any light gaps


7. This next step is optional. Depending on where you are hanging your finished product, your back frame might be visible from the sides. So to minimize the visual impact of seeing the frame, I painted both the sides and the top of the frame with a flat black paint. I did this after assembling the frame to ensure the edges of the plywood panels also got the black treatment as well.
8. After your black paint is dry, you'll want to either notch out your frame in one of the bottom corners, or drill a hole large enough for the cord for your power supply adapter to fit into. I went with the notch out route.
9. Now on to the fun part-> the LED's themselves! Remember that each LED string will need its own home run back to the power supply. Since we can no longer use the quick connect end of our power supply adapter, let's go ahead and clip it off. Set that aside for now. Our Spotlight frame is going to cover ~5/8 into each side of your light box, so you need to place your first string of lights just north of 5/8's from the long edge of the box. I used a tape measure and a pencil to keep my runs of led's straight. Run the Led strip the entire length of the box, and before looping against the side of the box, measure 1.25 from the edge of your first run to mark your second run. Continue this process until you get to the end of the 5M run.
***Tip*** Just because you can't solder all the strips together does not mean that you cannot solder your home run to 2 strips of 5m runs. So it is important at your points where you have to change to a new strip that you position it correctly that you can solder your wire to the correct leads on the led. This will allow you to make 2 home runs instead of 4. This makes your final wiring back to the power supply adapter much easier (2 wires to 1 instead of 4 to 1)
***Tip*** You'll want to ensure that when you make your curves that you make sure the led strip is all the way to the bottom of the box. This will give you plenty of room to run your home run wires over the leds on the bottom of the box without interfering with too much.


10. Continue running strips until you have used all 4 of your strips, should have ?? vertical strips. If you get to the end you can do like I did and start a run around the outside of the box.
11. Solder your home run wires between runs 1 & 2, and 3 & 4.
12. Run your home run wires back to the notch in your frame you made for the power supply adapter. Connect your home runs to the adapter cable (wire nuts, solder, quick connects, etc.). At this point plug your adapter into the power supply and ensure that all your Led's are working and appear to have the same brightness. Ensure that you wrap everything inside the cabinet in electrical tape.


13. Insert your power adapter into the notch. I put electrical tape over the notch to help keep it in place. I also used electrical tape to hold the home runs into place into the corner.
14. Using the holes that the Spotlight frame has for mounting to the wall, mount the frame to the spotlight frame. I again used 1 & ¼ wood screws. Ensure that you do not drill through any wiring.
15. Mount the power supply to the bottom of the frame. Allow enough cord to be loose so your able to reach a power outlet without stressing the frame/cord. I used small nailed cable clips and twist ties to roughly hold everything into place.
16. Mounting to the wall: I went with the Eye hooks and wire on the frame. I drilled one hole on each side of the frame (~8 from the top) and inserted eye bolts. Then I ran a steel wire between the 2 Eye-bolts . For the wall side I used (2) 35 lbs rated Monkey Hooks spaced approximately ¼ of the way from each outside edge. These Monkey Hooks are easy to install and move and leave little damage to the wall if you do end up needing to move them.
17. Insert you poster acrylics into the frame. Make sure the white piece is in the back, then the poster, then the spotlight supplied piece.
***Tip*** Both the spotlight pieces and the acrylic have protective films on them. The spotlight piece only on one side, the acrylic on both. See attached picture but these need to be remove or you won't get the expected brightness out of them.

18. Plug your frame in. I am using Insteon controlled power outlets to control each frame. This allows me to program them so that I can have them turn off/on with my light switch (also insteon) at the bottom of my stair case (My theater is in a bonus room over my garage). It also allows me to control them through an insteon IR adapter so that when I push play or power on on my Harmony remote it turns all of my lights off (it's a bit too bright with all 4 of my frames on while trying to watch a movie).


19. To help hide the cords that are a ways away from my outlets I used some paintable wiremold wire covers. This gives it a final touch of clean to improve the WAF effect.
20. Enjoy and move on to your next theater project! (I think I am running out of things to do???? Suggestions?)

Cuzed and DaDeuce,

Question for you guys ... I am really concerned about my power supplies. I have 2 types here. One a 5amp and one a 1.6 amp one.

The 5 amp one gets super hot (like nuclear meltdown hot) within 2-5 mins.

The 1.6 amp one gets really hot but not as bad within 15 mins.

IMHO both get way too hot for my liking.

I am running another 1.6 amp PS (same as the one above) on a set blue LEDs for my riser at it never gets hot. It is only running 2 strands of LEDs. The frames are running 4 rows of LEDS.

Any thoughts or a suggestion of a better power supply that doesn't get so hot it will burn my house down?

Greg



**EDIT - Guys BIG problem with this setup for me. My LEDs and power supplies came from LEDLAND on ebay. I have now discovered in addition to the above info that the PS is running WAY TOO HOT. I was just looking them over and one of them has completely melted down the plastic around the plug. This is with the 4 strips of LEDs "homerun" to the power connector. I am hoping I can find a suitable PS to deal with this if not I have to go to another plan which may mean rewiring these things so that they use 2 PSes instead of one. Again it doesn't matter whether I am using the 1.6a or the 5a one they both get way too hot.

Please lmk if you guys are experiencing anything similar.

Thanks.

GCS,

Well mine have gotten warm there is no melting of anything or temperatures anywhere near that that would suggest melting. Do you have a picture of what actually melted?

Also what type of usage were you putting to yours? Mine will literally be only on for a few minutes at a time while getting ready to watch a movie or powering down the theater. Where yours on for a constant period of time?

What is melted is the actual plug that goes into the wall.

Both wires of the LED strips are simply wired up and brought "home" to the power connector and connected via a wire nut - nothing special.

Well I would like to have my frames on as long as we want (not just minutes) so this is an issue for me.

Cuzed lmk what you find out about your PS.

Thanks.

Greg

Greg,

I did not mean to sound like I am ok with the plug melting with a long period of use, I was just trying to convey my usage up to this point to see if I could potentially have the same issues down the road.

Back to your melted PS. You said the plug melted, did it melt due to being in close proximity to the power brick or did the heat travel up the power cord itself? How long had the frame been on when this happened? I have some time tonight to "watch" my frames and can test my units as well. Also are your leds wired directly to the ps or do you have one of the "quick" commect adapters in between? You also have multiple units correct? Is the heat an issue on all of them or was this unit significantly hotter than the others? It could be a bad power supply or your plug could have come wired incorrectly (there is no reason for heat to be generated at the wall as there is no "work" being done on that part of the plug. But if the plug was not built/ wired correctly it could have a short in it that was generating the heat, which means my units as well could have this flaw.)

No worries ... I was just conveying how we plan to use ours as well, my bad.




All 5 units act the same. The cord is almost as hot as the power brick itself. Only one of them has had the the actual wall plug melt the plastic. The power connector at the frame and the frame and LEDs themselves are all fine.

We can't have them on for more than about 15 mins before they seem to get so hot its unbearable.

Each LED string has 2 wires coming off it and then each of those wires is wire nutted together with the power connector (all whites together, all reds together etc). These are a connected via the power connector I purchased from LEDLAND with the power supplies and the LEDs.

Greg

Greg,

I will experiment tonight and let you know my findings. I believe I have had mine on for more than 15 minutes when I was testing and don't recall having this issue. I will admit that I also would not have been paying attention and would have probably unplugged the unit without messing with the power brick.