Introduction: Iron Man Led Light

By Alain's Projects

I've done this project, to update my skills, on how to use a laser cutter.

Link to the video

Step 1: ​Cad Design and Schematics

To design the base I used QCad

I used a picture of Iron Man and modified it with the edge detection tool in Gimp. I also added the contour with the cutting mask. I made small corrections to the picture, like the eyes and the Arc reactor to make them more visible. A few drawing lines were corrected too. Everything is then imported into Inkscape and vectorised with the "Path/Trace Bitmap" tool.

Now it's ready to get sent to the laser cutter.

Attachments

Step 2: Laser Cutting and Engraving the Parts

First, cut the wooden parts of the base.

Engrave the picture on the 3mm transparent orange acrylic glass and cut out the design

If everything works well, you have a nice acrylic Iron Man.

Step 3: The Led Light

The parts I used:

  • a small piece of pcb board
  • 3 white 5mm LED's
  • 3 resistors +- 100 Ohm
  • 1 micro usb breakout board (14mmx15mm) can be found here or here
  • small wires
  • a micro usb 5V powersupply or a mirco usb cable connected to your PC

This Led module is for 5V. You can use other voltages if you adapt the resistors.

This circuit takes approximately 60mA. Solder the 3 Leds on the PCB board. For each Led connect a resistor to their Anode. Solder the Cathode of the Leds (short leg) together. This will be the GND connection..

Solder the not connected side of the 3 resistors together. This is for the 5Volts.

Use 2 small wires to connect the micro USB breakout board to the led module.

Step 4: The Base

The base is made out of 4mm plywood. The parts are numbered 1 to 6 in the picture, where 1 is the top layer and 6 is the bottom.

First, we glue part 3 on part 4 and then on part 5. Place four 3mm nuts in part 3. Now glue part 2 to part 3. Use temporarily four long 3mm screws and nuts to press the parts together and aligning them.

After the glue is dry, remove the screws and glue part 6 on the top of part 5 to hide the screw holes. Use clamps to align it, press all together and let it dry.

Turn the base and insert the led module and the USB breakout board. Use 12 -16 mm long 3mm screws to attach the bottom.

And it's done.

Step 5: The Finished Led Light

Connect a 5V micro USB Power Supply to it and it will be light.

This was my first try building a Led light like this. I learned how to do things and how not to do them :)

Hope you enjoy my instructable

Things to do:
I should really paint the base.