Finally some photos

There it is. Ignore the fact that some of the wood appears to have gaps. It will be covered with something to pretty it up. All that wood except for the 4 spacers are glued together.

First picture is a closeup of LEDs. They were supposed to be in reverse order, but apparently I don't know how to use the upload feature of this blog. Anyways, that is enough to give you a basic idea.

After I get the LED issue worked out I'll get the projector to evaluate how tall the stand is going to be and at what angle the top will be at.

Kicked it into high gear

I kicked it into high gear today and got alot done so far.

I measured all the wood for the frame, made all the cuts, and have it all set out in the correct positioning. I'm going to slowly glue it together piece by piece, with the first piece setting right now. I also have pictures!

I took the time to attempt to smooth the edges a bit more... I guess it helped. I used 400 grit and 600 grit sandpaper, wetting the 600 at the end. I then found some of my wife's silver polish and took that to the edge to see if I could clear it up a bit. Not sure if that helped. I did manage to get the faces all dirty and had to spend way too much time cleaning it without leaving a ton of streaks. (What is the best way to clean acrylic? Can you use something like windex on it?)

While typing this I was waiting for my camera software to pick up the camera I plugged into the USB port. Doh. I don't have the software on this computer. It's on my wife's computer and I don't feel like turning it on right now.

So pictures a bit later today. I promise.

6 of 40 LEDs have gone bad.

I tested each LED that I have wired up separately and have discovered hat 6 out of 40 of them are not lighting up. (Powered each individually with a 180 ohm resistor.) I did no test the remaining LEDs that are wired up because my power cable was too short to reach them. I guess I better test them all.

I've contacted the ebay seller I bought these from to see if I can get some manufacturing info to verify the specs he gave me are correct. I can't believe that I could have blown out six of them in probably less than an hour of total use unless something is really wrong with those specs. I guess maybe I should use a much larger resistor just in case? I would assume underpowering an LED won't cause damage? Just make it dimmer? I suppose it is worth a try.

I'm leaning towards these LEDs just being cheap and crappy. (The Ebay seller did list them as High Quality LEDs, so I'm sure that can't be the case...)

Who turned out the lights?

For some reason all but one of my LED arrays appear to have gone out. I don't know if some LEDs went bad, a resistor went bad, my soldering went bad, or what. All I know is they don't seem to be working. I really hope that the specs on my LEDs were not incorrect and causing me to blow them out with too much power or something. I would have thought I would hear a pop or be able to visibly tell they are bad though, which I can't. Same with the resistor.

I'll have to see if I can find a circuit testor to borrow from someone.

I did finish the other two sides with three arrays of LEDs apiece. With the issue I'm having with the first two sides I decided to wait on the final soldering though.

I also picked up some wood to use for the acrylic frame. I'll break out my saw tomorrow and cut the pieces down to the correct size and see about getting the frame finalized. I also purchased some 600 grit sandpaper so that I can complete the sanding of the acyrlic edges. (I tried to find something finer, but that was the finest they had.)

If I can get the frame finished tomorrow, then I will post some pictures.

Half of the LEDs are in place

I have LEDs hooked to two sides of the frame now. I have decided to wait on adding the LEDs to the other two sides until after I get my camera and verify that FTIR is actually occuring. I keep meaning to take pictures of the current build, but I think I'll wait until I clean up the wiring a bit, as it is really just thrown together right now.

It does appear that my grouping of 8 LEDs using a 1 ohm resistor is going to work out. Obviously I won't know for sure until the new camera gets here, but the camera I do have shows that the LEDs are at least working. (With the IR filter build into the camera it isn't able to pick up blobs from FTIR.)

I'm a bit surprised that my camera hasn't come yet and am getting a bit impatient. I'm tempted to just run to the store and buy one tonight if it doesn't show up today. I will hopefully build another table after this one, so it isn't as if it would go to waste.

Got everything in that I need to start building.

I received my LED holders in the mail today and picked up some C Channel aluminum. The C Channel aluminum actually fits the acrylic PERFECTLY. Without the paper on the acrylic it might be a little loose, but hopefully the rosco grey will make up for it.

I drilled some holes in one of the C Channel pieces to make sure that my drill and bit could handled it. Took longer than I would have expected, but worked just fine. I didn't get the LED holders in until after drilling the holes, so while the LEDs fit great in the holes, I have to widen them a bit for the holders to fit in.

I picked up the power supply (12V wall adapter) and needed resistors at Radio Shack. However, Tinkerman on NUI Group forums pointed out that I may want to switch from the 22 ohm resistors I bought to 1 ohm resistors. (Tinkerman seems to be on half the posts I read and is always helping people. I'm glad NUI Group forums have people like him on it always willing to help out and share their experiences.)

If it wasn't for the fact that it is a friend of mines birthday tonight, I would attempt to get the LEDs wired up to the acrylic tonight! Guess that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Preparing the Acrylic

I sanded the Acrylic down today. The edge was already fairly smooth and clear with some ridges from the saw used to cut it. Three of the four sides sanded down really easy and look pretty good, while one of them almost seems to have small bubbles in it. Oh well. I can try to smooth it more later.

I didn't use a wet sand method and didn't actually use that fine of sandpaper, so I would guess I'll end up coming back to this later. I want to try it out as is with LEDs and cameras first... I just have to get my LEDs wired up and my camera in.

I'm back from vacation and ready to get started. Most of the materials arrived while I was away, so everything should be ready to roll.

First off, prep the camera for IR... DOH. The cheap camera I got doesn't have a removable IR filter. I tried scraping the lens in the hopes that it was a painted filter, but no luck there. Guess I got what I paid for. So I picked one off of http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/infraredwebcam.htm that is said to work and am trying to get one off ebay now.

I also found out that my LED Holders were apparently backordered since 6/20, but they never notified me. I cancelled that order and found some even cheaper and better looking on ebay. Plus they are located much closer and will ship much quicker. (The backorder excuse I got was that they were held up in customs or something...)

Perhaps I will head to Lowes tonight to pickup some or all of the remaining supplies. Either that or I will start polishing the edges of the acrylic. (Unless I go out and cut the grass instead....)