For one of my children I created a small sign that said “Roblox” and I really liked the aesthetics of it so I created a larger version with built in light. From the start I maximized the size of the letters according to the printable volume on my 3d-printer. But the printing took ages, and it was close to 400g material per letter so I scaled it down a bit so for the end-result the letters are 13cm tall instead of 25. I feel that they would have been a lot more impressing at their original size, but even my insanity has levels.
Unfortunately I had some brain-farts and had to reprint it, so more than a roll of ABS plastic went into this project; but that is the cost of learning. I printed everything in white ABS and painted the letters with primer and black spray paint. I was a bit worried that the light would shine through the black parts and had ideas of using tinfoil to line the inside, but that fear was unfounded.
I also was a bit worried that the LED-strips would not illuminate the front evenly so the first version used two layers (top and bottom) with hex-infill between. I didn’t really like the look of it, the hexes was a lot more visible that I’d hoped (normally I’m all for bestagons tho).
The final front-parts are printed with no infill and no top-layers to create letters with thick edges but only 2 layer bottom (or front when mounted)
If I would make another I would consider some kind of magnet to snap the fronts into the letters, currently it’s only friction that holds them in place and it’s a bit dodgy. It created Tesla-level of gaps in the front.
I was bit impatient and curious on how it would look so as soon as I soldered the strings of LEDs together I just crammed it in and applied power. To my surprise the illumination was nice and even. With is surprising with my Olympic level of imprecision when “mounting” it.
As each letter is printed individually they are glued with superglue before priming and painting. I printed the letters with 10% infill, and if I am to make more I would have had a little bit more infill since the walls is somewhat flimsy now.