I'll always love working with LEDs, but there's something magical about the glow of neons. It's almost like the psychological difference between digital and analog sound.
@@jamesl9686 It is the never ending discussion. I love music and at 61 I have every medium used except wax. I love having all my music on an iPod a couple of centimetres square. Get the right headphones and your set for hours.
It's also hard to make an LED oscillate. For nightlight usage, my old neon lamps have outlasted their white LED relatives, which have gotten dimmer and dimmer over the years.
You know, after seeing Technology Connection's topic on the colour *brown* I have the most difficult time not thinking that live in the UK is dark orange.
I did a similar project following one of your previous led vids but used clear silicon mastic from a tube (more easily dispensed ) potted in rubber boots. After the silicon set I removed th silicon boot, they have lasted well in the garden with no evident rust so far. Those neons look so cool though I am a little dubious about putting them outside. Thanks for sharing. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
These little ne-2 indicator bulbs are really neat and there’s much more to them than you would expect from something that has such a simple construction and no moving parts. Their electrical properties are for the most part non-linear so their behavior is often surprising and their applications in circuits super interesting.
The best cheap method I have for "injecting" resin was to use one of those snaplock baggies. You squirt in the resin from your epoxy syringe, seal the bag and then knead it to mix it in the bag. You can then snip off a TINY corner of the bag, and hey presto, you have a piping bag you can squirt your mixed epoxy wherever needed
Hey Clive, tried to find a more personal way to say this, but I couldn't find your Facebook or insta. Thanks for putting a out all these videos man, I suffer insomnia and anxiety, often I rely upon your voice to help me sleep, however in the midst of qthe worst panic attacks I'll try and watch one of your videos for calm me down, you've got such a soothing voice and calms demeanor. Thanks so much man!
The first thing that went through my mind is what orientation was used to print these and was a brim or raft needed LOL. I like seeing the combination of electronics and 3D printing. I may have to try my hand at designing some globes like yours and make use of a spool of natural PLA that my Grandson in-law just gave me. Thank you.
I've been experimenting with UV curing resin and been having a great experience with it so far! The bottle I got was the smallest, 100g, and has a little nozzle. Stays nice and liquid until you hit it with a UV light, and 5 minutes later it's hard as a rock! Not sure if UV penetrates clear PLA, but may be worth a try! :)
UV cured resin is awesome! Far easier to use than epoxy and it doesn't really have a pot life. It's thin enough to go into narrow openings without making a mass. One really great thing about it is that you can use a few drops to fix things into place, as it cures instantly when irradiated with a good UV flashlight. Once the item is fixed in place, you simply add more resin to encapsulate and then hit it with UV to set the whole thing. I paid about $20 for a 200 GM bottle, and $7 for the UV flashlight on Amazon. It feels like magic to have such an easily controlled, set-on-demand crystal-clear encapsulant/adhesive!
I had to do a very similar potting exercise recently and I found that using a syringe to squirt the resin in worked really well. The typical syringe is made from a plastic that the resin does not bond to so provided you pull the plunger out before it sets too hard the remaining resin just pulls/pushes out and you can re-use the syringe.
After your crystal video the other day I got an idea to make a small handprop "welder" with some gold silk PLA for brass and a "tip" made from transparent PETG. Inside the body I put a couple of blue and a white flicker LED and it looks brilliant, powered directly off a 18650. Many thanks for the inspiration.
With all these outdoor and indoor lighting projects, could you record a video of your house to show off the results? I am assuming it would have to be from orbit or from behind a welder's mask due to the sheer force of photons. I wonder that your house is so bright that it could stop a star collapsing on itself...
You would definitely need the self mixing epoxy tubes for a larger project of this sort. Luckily they sell them at the big box stores here for a few cents more per tube. I really do love the fuzzy neon glow of these lights compared to the harsh direct led versions, much more "fairy" light like.
Get some of the resin that's nearly as viscous as water. Switch your filament to PETG, it prints just a well as PLA after a slight adjustment of the retraction distance and/or retraction speed and it wont degrade as PLA does (plus you don't have to worry about excessive sunlight turning it into PlayDoh). If you're making a sphere, model in your own custom support area so the top of the globe prints much nicer.
Thanks Clive, you have loads of patience. You can tell that you like your 3D printer so much. I know your demonstrating how to do it but the cost surly outways the means. Several hundreds of pounds for the printer then the parts and the epoxy. Were the shot glasses next to the £1 led fairy lights in Poundland. Cheers.
Its so cool how different UK fairy lights are to US fairy lights. Granted we do in ways have some that are similar but the majority are more like the older incandescent fairy lights where the mini bulb is removable. You can replace the bulbs connect 50+ strands together and the ends are normal US two prong non polarised outlets. And the wire is thick like those at 1:36.
This is why I've had to become much more selective, regarding what happens to "follow me home" from vintage electronics expos. You end up with an entire apartment full of interesting and potentially-useful parts, but nowhere to entertain company. LoL
@@franksmith7271 Why bother? Just order the parts and let them sit around until you remember why you ordered them in the first place like I do. I know I'll use them as soon as I come around to 'that' video again lol. It's a great way to run out of room and money!
Put some electroluminescent wire "tail fibres" on that hexagonal "crystal", along with a nice colour changing LED "inside" and you've got a "DIY Disco Bacteriophage" there, Mate! :-)
Clive, you could use hotsnot (hot glue) instead of AB resin. If the little neons get too warm for hotsnot, you can use a solvent adhesive called E6000. It cures 100% waterproof and a little harder than RTV silicone, and is available in small and large tubes. Remember a product called Shoo Goo (for repairing the soles of tennis shoes)? E6000 is very similar...and along with hotsnot would be a lot faster and easier than AB resin. Another thing to try would be to insert the bulb/wires into the neck and add just a little plug of sealant at the back--rather than fill the entire tube. Thank you my friend!
I think the best bet is to come up with a potting system that very consistently pops out the tip of the 5mm LED casings and use that as a friction fit mount for the globes.
Some tips if you wanna mess around with resins, i've spent a lot of time with the stuff: Absolutely wear gloves! The resin and hardener can cause skin irritation, which can get more severe every time you get exposed to it, think of it as an allergy that develops over time. It's also a pain in the ass to get off your hands, think of melted gummy bears except it does not dissolve in water. 1. Use GfK 2-Part epoxy (look for casting resin, 2kg of the stuff sets you back about 20€, so much more economical, even cheaper if you buy larger quantities) 2. The best mixing method i've come up with so far is grabbing a cheapo milk whisker and ripping the whisky bit out (it's just a press fit you can pull out the end) and chucking it into a cordless drill for the extra torque and lower RPM (less splashing). You want to keep the whisker under the surface of the resin to avoid pulling in unnecessary air bubbles. Make sure to very thoroughly mix along the sides and the edges of the container, the resin is much more viscous than the hardener, so it likes to cling to container walls. 3. To get rid of some of the air bubbles you can (gently) point a hairdryer at the surface of your resin, heat makes it flow better and the bubbles rise easier, tilt the mixing cup a bit to get a better view, it won't clear all the bubbles perfectly, and some will rise out of the cast later anyways. DO NOT spend too much time doing this, heat makes the stuff cure significantly faster. The better method here is to use a vacuum pump with an adequate chamber, but i understand most people won't have one, if you find up enjoying this, definitely invest into that. 4. Use cheap disposable syringes for filling in small stuff like in this video, they might be easier to use if you attach a silicone hose to it, if you want to reuse them you can wash uncured resin out with acetone. A neat thing is using actual thin needles and injecting different colors into the uncolored resin to create some fun effects.
Thanks Clive . You can get the epoxy glue in a dispenser that goes into one nozzle , I've not used one myself but its would have made things easier just to inject the mixed glue inside the caps. They are available on Amazon in 4ml packages for about £2.00 .
I had to backfill a few hundred studs for the Tarnhelm, in a production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. It was easier to use a piece of plastic wrap to mix the resin on/in, then twist it up like a tiny pastry tube, massage it to mix, then puncture a hole with a pin, stretching a tiny nozzle in the tip, at the same time. You can feel the stuff stiffen, so you get to know how mny more you can fill, and when the bag is firm, you know the filled studs can be moved, and the next ones set up.
If you want to pursue this further, I'd suggest making the shape(s) with 3d printing then a RTV silicone mold then cast the lights straight into resin. Kits are available. I've used one from a company called Alumilite before.
Ah yes, and the big V day has gone by, but listening to your talk, across my mind came the old saying about valentines day "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker!"
It would be interesting to see how these cope with the elements by leaving them outdoors for a time. I noticed the neon on the Quicktest looked much brighter and easily visible with your lights on compared with your fairy light ones.
Nice project. Looks good. PLA breaks down when exposed to UV. For outdoor use, PETG will last longer. There are many epoxies which are less viscous so would be easier to pour. Some have much longer shelf life. Dave.
PLA in particular the non pigmented ones breaks down very slowly with just UV and open air exposure even the coloured ones it is the pigment that suffers ahead of the filament itself. PLA needs a fairly specific high Heat/Humidity to breakdown. Bio packaging for example doesn't breakdown fully in general compost but needs a proper reactor.
PLA doesn't break down with UV, at least not very fast. The pigments in PLA will break down with UV, the colors will fade but it keeps its structural integrity. Pigments in PETG will last a lot longer, although it is broken up eventually. PLA biodegrades but only if it has suitable conditions. It needs to chemically break into shorter polymers which bacteria can then eat. The best way to get the conditions perfect is to use it in a compost, soil has chemicals that will break down PLA to a form that bacteria can use as food. Aquarium biofilter is another place where PLA will break down very fast, the conditions are quite perfect and there are HUGE loads of different kind of bacteria. Add UV to perfect scenario and it will hasten the demise. People have kept PLA prints outside for years without a problem, some have had theirs degrade in couple of months.
I've 3D printed quite a few PLA mushrooms for my wife's fairy garden and they've been outdoors in all the worst of the UK weather for over two years now without and visible signs of degradation. OK they were undercoated with car body primer and then hand painted with acrylics, so maybe that's protecting the PLA itself. Not sure but 3D printed stuff is definitely viable for garden ornaments
I use a similar string of lights in my garden as you showed in the beginning. I have had a single 100 string on all year for 4 years after dark and it has now burned out most of the leds and their brightness are 1/5 of what the new ones were. Some of the strings also showed the yellow discolour. And one or two had some water ingress and I could see a bit of rust.
For anyone doing this project, you can buy disposable syringes in various capacities along with “blunt” tips in a variety of gauges off of Amazon and they are great for dispensing glue as well as for dispensing flux and solder paste. For epoxy you will wish to use a fairly large gauge tip (e.g. 18 gauge at the smallest, or larger ideally, just remember that “larger” is a “smaller” gauge number...so 16 gauge is larger than 18) since epoxy is fairly viscous. They are inexpensive enough for a project like this that you simply dispose of them once finished or the epoxy sets up. But that would make getting the epoxy well into the lamp shade much easier and avoid possible air bubbles that might allow water an entry point plus you can dispense the epoxy much faster by preparing a number of lamp shades in advance and quickly injecting epoxy into them one after another, then reload the syringe and carry on injecting epoxy until you either run out of prepared lamp shades or the epoxy sets up on you.
I think you could mix the resin in a small plastic bag, cut one corner off and use that like you would use a glazing syringe. Also, PLA is biodegradable, BUT it needs a pretty specific environment to be palatable to bacteria. It has to be warm, humid and alcaline. Stored on a shelf it will last for ages, though it will soak up moisture over time and become brittle.
@ChayD Do you know what "fankle" means? You could say, "She got herself all in a fankle with it" or "Those necklaces are fankled" ? It means kind of like jumbled up or in a tangle or knot. Old Scottish is dying oot
I have a hot melt glue gun that has attachments, one is a small tube type tip. You can inject the hot melt glue right in to the area. Works great with PLA. Also the 3d printer UV resin is water thin, a eye dropper would fill the area and then just cure.
Looks like a job for the acrylic hot melt. It's pricy compared to standard hot melt, but stickier, softer, and more durable. It's also more fluid when melted. Melting temp of the printed parts might be an issue though. Takes a special gun (I have one) but can do amazing things.
If I remember correctly PLA needs quite a bit of heat to degrade,plus moisture. The paper I read said it takes several weeks submerged in a 60°C bath for thin (2 cm or less) chunks of PLA to biodegrade completely. I don't know how long it'd last in the wild though.
Clive - buy a batch of 20 non-medical syringes from Amazon / eBay. I use 'em for filling fountain pen cartridges but I bet they would work for super sloppy resin. Discard the blunt needles provided, just suck the goop from the shot glass and then squirt it into a moulding. They have about a 2-3mm hole in the nozzle. You'd be able to do quite a few lights per syringe before the resin dried in the nozzle.
those self mixing tips on epoxy are amazing, i used to use those for various things at my last job... i think it was sticking epoxy into trailing edges of propeller blades
PLA is biodegradable, but it requires 60°C temps. The bigger concern with outdoor usage is the fact that UV light can damage pla, causing it to warp and discolour. PETG is an amazing plastic that's a little harder to print, but is stronger than pla or abs and can resist UV damage.
Epoxy resin foreseen to use with glass fiber cloth runs like water, so maybe more appropriate. Easy to get in syringes, but runny, have to hold your bits open side up. Hot glue may melt or deform the pla, acetic silicone is corrosive, UV cured resin is very nice, but a nice glue that I recently found to be very effective on pla, mix-free and relatively fast curing is sold under various brands like repair'extrem, (pattex) , bison here on Belgium has a similar one. Clear glue, with a very distinctive eucalyptus smell. Look for "polymer" glue on the package, or something similar. Seals like silicone, kind of solvent-free, stays slightly flexible, ideal for leather and rubbery think as well. Available in relatively large tubes with narrow tips.
That Poundland epoxy is excellent stuff, it also sticks glass an sets clear, you can also get a product called Miliput you mix two parts together to the size you need, Boyes stores sell that stuff, I'm impressed with Poundland adhesives, At one point Tommy Walsh put his name to some of there stuff.
Not going to lie. I absolutely love coming home after work and watching your videos, Clive! I'm a software developer, not an electrician, but I love how you approach things. Very interesting and makes me tempted to learn about electronics more.
5Thanks for sharing this with us Clive. Here in my country we have some disposable injection guns suitable for such projects. We call them syringes and are cheap. Yuk Yuk! Cheers, Billy in Canada
They give away disposable liquid syringes for oral medicines at a lot of pharmacies/chemists. Could make the injection of resin a lot easier. Also, I love the copy/paste OpenSCAD code in the description :)
We've just been discussing the biodegradability of PLA in the context of airsoft BBs used in woodland. The consensus is that unless you're actively composting it, you're looking at 1,000 years, give or take.
You might want to try printing a nozzle for the resin tube that mixes them together and dispenses it with a narrower tip you can use to do this with less steps and less mess.
uv resistant is ASA material, its cheap but you have ot print it with high temp, you can print them and them make a mould form silicon and then cast them with led inside from resin :) also uv resistant resin otherwise goes yellow and water reppelant resin too, that would be jewelerry casting resin for exmaple is fine its food grade aswell for some reason
Get some epoxy resin that's meant for laminating fibreglass - "laminating epoxy". It's much, much thinner and flows very easily, so you could easily fill up the cup before shoving the neon in. I really like the idea though!
You don't need some sort of "injection gun" for the resin. They sell it in syringes like that with a tip that mixes as you push it out. Just inject directly into each hole. Only need to replace the tip when it dries up.
interesting stuff! I think the resin would flow out of a medicine syringe for pets. they are for liquid meds, and not a needle syringe. They come in many sizes.
Use transparent silicone (with an injector) ... it’s easier to work with than the damn resin. Better yet, use potting wax and just plug it with silicone at the end. Potting wax flows very well when heated.
You could probably pick up a bunch of cheap plastic syringes off eBay which would make it a lot easier. They're cheap enough that once the resin starts getting tacky inside the syringe, you just throw it away and grab another. Best to go for the ones with the straight tips rather than the luer lock, otherwise you'd just have to get a bunch of luer lock nozzles to go with them, and you couldn't reuse them afterwards anyway. They'd also allow you to measure how much is necessary to avoid spilling the resin out the end when you insert the neon/LED. I'd probably have a go at making a set myself, if my printer wasn't on the fritz. ):
Hi Clive. The TT racer that you mentioned - Conor Cummins - was involved in a TT crash, which caused him severe injuries. Fortunately, he made a full recovery and, despite his ordeal, is still racing today. Road racing, of which the TT is the most well-known and prestigious event, attracts riders who have cast-iron balls. For anyone wishing to see footage of the crash - th-cam.com/video/Y07yt87lhEA/w-d-xo.html.
So when I do for the resin would be amazing clear cast resin. It has an 30-minute working time. Set up overnight and is like 20 bucks for 24 oz bottles
It would be difficult to machine silicon as it's hard and brittle. Probably have more luck with silicone. However, it tends to be hygroscopic (absorbs water) so it's best not used in contact with metal.
I was thinking hot glue, if it isn’t too hot for the PLA. I’d just put it in behind the neon, rather than potting it solid. Perhaps print a step into the tube so the solidified glue has a bit of support against tugging out. Quickly, carefully squirting hot glue up a tube of heat shrink works like magic.
Next you should tack a capacitor to the leads of the neon after the resistors, and try some larger value resistors while you're at it -- in the megohm range? Then they'd all flash at different rates...
I totally understand resin troubles, I hate working against the clock with sticky messes. But you got me thinking, could you just put the resin in a bag, cut the corner off and pipette it in?
Next time you do this kind of stuff with the epoxy resin, get yourself a disposable plastic syringe with a stubby tip, they sell them in pharmacies/drugstores, you'll then be able to cleanly pickup some mixed resin from the cup and inject it into the small openings of whatever you're working on pretty easily and without making a mess .
Seems like a back-fill with something cheap and plentiful, e.g. hot-melt glue or even packing foam, would lower the amount of epoxy resin you'd need to use, while still keeping the ass end watertight (assuming the tips are already watertight, of course). Plus I'd love to see experimentation with hyperbolic & parabolic reflectors instead of spherical ones, with the various light sources. Nevertheless, I do love seeing this type of work, and you'll never know 'til you try. :)
Could there be an easier way to pot in the neons if you designed a two-part system for the 3D printed baubles? A short collar that gets resined in place that accepts the diffuser after curing. Would also let you re-theme a string of lights to customize it to the occasion. More work for the printer (and designer) though.
A great project, but I was expecting you to be using the very old R-C Neon Flash circuit.? It was very popular in the 70's, and before, when you could make potted "sculptures" with multiple neons that would each flash semi independently, powered by a small but high voltage DC source, such as the old 22V batteries, used to be used for camera flash systems. If I recall, they could last months? For anyone who does not know the circuit, it was a large (megohms) resistor in series with a simple DC (~ 100V +) power supply, charging a capacitor that is connected in parallel with the neon. When the voltage reaches the neon strike voltage (70v?), you get a short flash. The capacitor is thus discharged and then it starts to charge again. I never saw one with the fluorescent neons!. That would be great.. Time for some experiments? (please!) Many thanks for such great videos Dagnall
In Sweden, you just go to a pharmacy and ask for a couple of syringes to feed medicine to a toddler with, they're free and come in two sizes: 2 and 5 ml. Perhaps it's possible where you live as well? They're great for stuff like this, and adding spackel into old drill holes in teh walls etc.
Hey BC Many thanks for your videos. I really enjoy them An education, entertainment, and your dulcet tones can... SEND ME TO SLEEP!! ;-) Im only a choppy boat ride from you! Lancaster. As a new born in 61, you'll understand that you are nowt but a wippersnapper. Honestly mate I truly enjoy and appreciate what you do. Many thanks Keep up the great work Chris
@bigclivedotcom could you use a different resistor value and run them from 55VAC such as from a 110 bucket? Would get you closer to a “safe” voltage for single insulated wire and fundamentally isolated so another safety bonus
Damn it - now look what you’ve done. Some poor sot out there is going to want to make a neon fairy light using only a 100 ohm resistor, and potted in epoxy, and then plug it into the mains! I predict way too much excitement, and the need for a change of pants! 🤣
That potential problem of maybe having too much excitement can be averted by leaving out the costly 30 cent neon bulb and using pingpong nitrocellulose lacquer in lieu of epoxy. That will also fix the problem of the lights being too dim.
couldnt you build a (siemens logo) controlled hot snot (gluegun) injector, which keeps the hot glue at the right temperature? adding another clip which goes into the hot glue and pushes it to seal around ? so the glue is more used as a seal and the clip fixes the light in the holder. For the double insulation you could always use a 230:24AC (or just a 230:24 to 24:110 if the low voltage doesnt work) transformer and smaller resistors ?
I salvaged a couple neons from something last year, but my being the undelicate type I am, I managed to break the leads off them trying to straighten them as carefully as I could, they're definitely not as robust as LEDs, especially if already having been fitted in something... :S
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Instead of resin could you not use acetic silicone sealant, I like the blue crystal it looked awesome.
If you were going to make a long string I would think the best way to do the resin injection would be with a syringe (the type with a plastic end used for feeding fluid oral medicine to babies/pets, not the injection type with a sharp metal needle...) and to put the lamp/led in before the resin. also a small hole to let the air out at the lamp end as you inject the resin might be a good idea.
Mixing 2 part epoxy for doing little injections is made much easier using pound land cake piping bags, or actually and thickish freezer back will do. Mix with your fingers, cut off a corner and squirt.
I'll always love working with LEDs, but there's something magical about the glow of neons. It's almost like the psychological difference between digital and analog sound.
isn't all sound analog?
@@gd.ritter Not when it is stored.
@@jamesl9686 It is the never ending discussion. I love music and at 61 I have every medium used except wax. I love having all my music on an iPod a couple of centimetres square. Get the right headphones and your set for hours.
Brendan Perkins That’s why I like Nixies!
It's also hard to make an LED oscillate. For nightlight usage, my old neon lamps have outlasted their white LED relatives, which have gotten dimmer and dimmer over the years.
You know, after seeing Technology Connection's topic on the colour *brown* I have the most difficult time not thinking that live in the UK is dark orange.
I watched that video just before this one. I'm now questioning my entire life.
@@SketchNI HA ha! me too!
I did a similar project following one of your previous led vids but used clear silicon mastic from a tube (more easily dispensed ) potted in rubber boots.
After the silicon set I removed th silicon boot, they have lasted well in the garden with no evident rust so far.
Those neons look so cool though I am a little dubious about putting them outside.
Thanks for sharing.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
That's a nice set of lamps. Neon has an aesthetic that just cannot be duplicated and will always be wonderful.
These little ne-2 indicator bulbs are really neat and there’s much more to them than you would expect from something that has such a simple construction and no moving parts. Their electrical properties are for the most part non-linear so their behavior is often surprising and their applications in circuits super interesting.
I really like those! I used to have loads of neon flicker flame bulbs set up in my bedroom when I was a teenager.
filling up tiny holes with white-ish creamy liquid and then shove things in after, truly a labour of love
Or a labour of cuckoldry. Eww.
LMFAO!
@@johncoops6897 Bigclive's Scotsman can and do !
The best cheap method I have for "injecting" resin was to use one of those snaplock baggies. You squirt in the resin from your epoxy syringe, seal the bag and then knead it to mix it in the bag. You can then snip off a TINY corner of the bag, and hey presto, you have a piping bag you can squirt your mixed epoxy wherever needed
Hey Clive, tried to find a more personal way to say this, but I couldn't find your Facebook or insta. Thanks for putting a out all these videos man, I suffer insomnia and anxiety, often I rely upon your voice to help me sleep, however in the midst of qthe worst panic attacks I'll try and watch one of your videos for calm me down, you've got such a soothing voice and calms demeanor. Thanks so much man!
The first thing that went through my mind is what orientation was used to print these and was a brim or raft needed LOL. I like seeing the combination of electronics and 3D printing. I may have to try my hand at designing some globes like yours and make use of a spool of natural PLA that my Grandson in-law just gave me. Thank you.
I've been experimenting with UV curing resin and been having a great experience with it so far!
The bottle I got was the smallest, 100g, and has a little nozzle. Stays nice and liquid until you hit it with a UV light, and 5 minutes later it's hard as a rock!
Not sure if UV penetrates clear PLA, but may be worth a try! :)
How much was the bottle? Will it last unused for many years, I wonder? All my glues dry out before I use 80% of the bottle.
UV cured resin is awesome! Far easier to use than epoxy and it doesn't really have a pot life. It's thin enough to go into narrow openings without making a mass. One really great thing about it is that you can use a few drops to fix things into place, as it cures instantly when irradiated with a good UV flashlight. Once the item is fixed in place, you simply add more resin to encapsulate and then hit it with UV to set the whole thing. I paid about $20 for a 200 GM bottle, and $7 for the UV flashlight on Amazon. It feels like magic to have such an easily controlled, set-on-demand crystal-clear encapsulant/adhesive!
Perfect if you want to encapsulate UV LEDs into your lamp holders!
The problem being that it stinks, quite a lot... I've used just acrylic clear coat to seal the surface and clear nail polish for small things.
I tried it in the past. And it cures in transparent PLA.
I had to do a very similar potting exercise recently and I found that using a syringe to squirt the resin in worked really well. The typical syringe is made from a plastic that the resin does not bond to so provided you pull the plunger out before it sets too hard the remaining resin just pulls/pushes out and you can re-use the syringe.
After your crystal video the other day I got an idea to make a small handprop "welder" with some gold silk PLA for brass and a "tip" made from transparent PETG. Inside the body I put a couple of blue and a white flicker LED and it looks brilliant, powered directly off a 18650.
Many thanks for the inspiration.
With all these outdoor and indoor lighting projects, could you record a video of your house to show off the results?
I am assuming it would have to be from orbit or from behind a welder's mask due to the sheer force of photons.
I wonder that your house is so bright that it could stop a star collapsing on itself...
The layered effect of printing spreads the light quite nicely.
You would definitely need the self mixing epoxy tubes for a larger project of this sort. Luckily they sell them at the big box stores here for a few cents more per tube. I really do love the fuzzy neon glow of these lights compared to the harsh direct led versions, much more "fairy" light like.
Get some of the resin that's nearly as viscous as water. Switch your filament to PETG, it prints just a well as PLA after a slight adjustment of the retraction distance and/or retraction speed and it wont degrade as PLA does (plus you don't have to worry about excessive sunlight turning it into PlayDoh). If you're making a sphere, model in your own custom support area so the top of the globe prints much nicer.
Thanks Clive, you have loads of patience. You can tell that you like your 3D printer so much. I know your demonstrating how to do it but the cost surly outways the means. Several hundreds of pounds for the printer then the parts and the epoxy. Were the shot glasses next to the £1 led fairy lights in Poundland. Cheers.
The shot glasses are usually in the party area. I'd class my 3D stuff as prototypes or purely custom.
Ooo i would love a full set of these!
i quite like that green neon light. it's pretty vibrant.
Its so cool how different UK fairy lights are to US fairy lights. Granted we do in ways have some that are similar but the majority are more like the older incandescent fairy lights where the mini bulb is removable. You can replace the bulbs connect 50+ strands together and the ends are normal US two prong non polarised outlets. And the wire is thick like those at 1:36.
This must be repeated : filling up tiny holes with white-ish creamy liquid and then shove things in after, truly a labour of love
Best thing I ever realized is no one is forcing me to finish projects
Worst thing I realized lol, I start them and end up cannibalizing them later for parts on another project.
@@franksmith7271 You too eh? :)
This is why I've had to become much more selective, regarding what happens to "follow me home" from vintage electronics expos. You end up with an entire apartment full of interesting and potentially-useful parts, but nowhere to entertain company. LoL
@@franksmith7271 Why bother? Just order the parts and let them sit around until you remember why you ordered them in the first place like I do. I know I'll use them as soon as I come around to 'that' video again lol. It's a great way to run out of room and money!
@@SigEpBlue I hear ya there
This is where those packs of mixing nozzles really come in handy.
Put some electroluminescent wire "tail fibres" on that hexagonal "crystal", along with a nice colour changing LED "inside" and you've got a "DIY Disco Bacteriophage" there, Mate! :-)
Geeez, wanted to do this for so long, just never got around to do it, neons are beauty at it's finest.
Need more things that go boom boom..more boom boom please...have a great day
Clive, you could use hotsnot (hot glue) instead of AB resin. If the little neons get too warm for hotsnot, you can use a solvent adhesive called E6000. It cures 100% waterproof and a little harder than RTV silicone, and is available in small and large tubes. Remember a product called Shoo Goo (for repairing the soles of tennis shoes)? E6000 is very similar...and along with hotsnot would be a lot faster and easier than AB resin. Another thing to try would be to insert the bulb/wires into the neck and add just a little plug of sealant at the back--rather than fill the entire tube. Thank you my friend!
I think the best bet is to come up with a potting system that very consistently pops out the tip of the 5mm LED casings and use that as a friction fit mount for the globes.
Some tips if you wanna mess around with resins, i've spent a lot of time with the stuff:
Absolutely wear gloves! The resin and hardener can cause skin irritation, which can get more severe every time you get exposed to it, think of it as an allergy that develops over time.
It's also a pain in the ass to get off your hands, think of melted gummy bears except it does not dissolve in water.
1. Use GfK 2-Part epoxy (look for casting resin, 2kg of the stuff sets you back about 20€, so much more economical, even cheaper if you buy larger quantities)
2. The best mixing method i've come up with so far is grabbing a cheapo milk whisker and ripping the whisky bit out (it's just a press fit you can pull out the end) and chucking it into a cordless drill for the extra torque and lower RPM (less splashing). You want to keep the whisker under the surface of the resin to avoid pulling in unnecessary air bubbles.
Make sure to very thoroughly mix along the sides and the edges of the container, the resin is much more viscous than the hardener, so it likes to cling to container walls.
3. To get rid of some of the air bubbles you can (gently) point a hairdryer at the surface of your resin, heat makes it flow better and the bubbles rise easier, tilt the mixing cup a bit to get a better view, it won't clear all the bubbles perfectly, and some will rise out of the cast later anyways. DO NOT spend too much time doing this, heat makes the stuff cure significantly faster.
The better method here is to use a vacuum pump with an adequate chamber, but i understand most people won't have one, if you find up enjoying this, definitely invest into that.
4. Use cheap disposable syringes for filling in small stuff like in this video, they might be easier to use if you attach a silicone hose to it, if you want to reuse them you can wash uncured resin out with acetone. A neat thing is using actual thin needles and injecting different colors into the uncolored resin to create some fun effects.
Thanks Clive . You can get the epoxy glue in a dispenser that goes into one nozzle , I've not used one myself but its would have made things easier just to inject the mixed glue inside the caps. They are available on Amazon in 4ml packages for about £2.00 .
Man I do love that glow effect!
The outside of Clives home must be totally festooned with fairy lights, given how many he makes, or tinkers with.
Clive, you can get some very runny epoxy mixes which can be sucked up into a syringe. Perfect for this kind of work.
I had to backfill a few hundred studs for the Tarnhelm, in a production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. It was easier to use a piece of plastic wrap to mix the resin on/in, then twist it up like a tiny pastry tube, massage it to mix, then puncture a hole with a pin, stretching a tiny nozzle in the tip, at the same time. You can feel the stuff stiffen, so you get to know how mny more you can fill, and when the bag is firm, you know the filled studs can be moved, and the next ones set up.
If you want to pursue this further, I'd suggest making the shape(s) with 3d printing then a RTV silicone mold then cast the lights straight into resin. Kits are available. I've used one from a company called Alumilite before.
Glad you used neon, led is so run of the mill these days.
Ah yes, and the big V day has gone by, but listening to your talk, across my mind came the old saying about valentines day "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker!"
It would be interesting to see how these cope with the elements by leaving them outdoors for a time. I noticed the neon on the Quicktest looked much brighter and easily visible with your lights on compared with your fairy light ones.
Resin can let water in, it shrinks a bit and forms channels on the wires.
Nice project. Looks good.
PLA breaks down when exposed to UV. For outdoor use, PETG will last longer.
There are many epoxies which are less viscous so would be easier to pour. Some have much longer shelf life.
Dave.
Marine epoxy pours nicely, but it's expensive. There are probably better options.
PLA in particular the non pigmented ones breaks down very slowly with just UV and open air exposure even the coloured ones it is the pigment that suffers ahead of the filament itself. PLA needs a fairly specific high Heat/Humidity to breakdown. Bio packaging for example doesn't breakdown fully in general compost but needs a proper reactor.
PLA doesn't break down with UV, at least not very fast. The pigments in PLA will break down with UV, the colors will fade but it keeps its structural integrity. Pigments in PETG will last a lot longer, although it is broken up eventually. PLA biodegrades but only if it has suitable conditions. It needs to chemically break into shorter polymers which bacteria can then eat. The best way to get the conditions perfect is to use it in a compost, soil has chemicals that will break down PLA to a form that bacteria can use as food. Aquarium biofilter is another place where PLA will break down very fast, the conditions are quite perfect and there are HUGE loads of different kind of bacteria. Add UV to perfect scenario and it will hasten the demise. People have kept PLA prints outside for years without a problem, some have had theirs degrade in couple of months.
I've 3D printed quite a few PLA mushrooms for my wife's fairy garden and they've been outdoors in all the worst of the UK weather for over two years now without and visible signs of degradation. OK they were undercoated with car body primer and then hand painted with acrylics, so maybe that's protecting the PLA itself. Not sure but 3D printed stuff is definitely viable for garden ornaments
I use a similar string of lights in my garden as you showed in the beginning. I have had a single 100 string on all year for 4 years after dark and it has now burned out most of the leds and their brightness are 1/5 of what the new ones were.
Some of the strings also showed the yellow discolour. And one or two had some water ingress and I could see a bit of rust.
For anyone doing this project, you can buy disposable syringes in various capacities along with “blunt” tips in a variety of gauges off of Amazon and they are great for dispensing glue as well as for dispensing flux and solder paste. For epoxy you will wish to use a fairly large gauge tip (e.g. 18 gauge at the smallest, or larger ideally, just remember that “larger” is a “smaller” gauge number...so 16 gauge is larger than 18) since epoxy is fairly viscous. They are inexpensive enough for a project like this that you simply dispose of them once finished or the epoxy sets up. But that would make getting the epoxy well into the lamp shade much easier and avoid possible air bubbles that might allow water an entry point plus you can dispense the epoxy much faster by preparing a number of lamp shades in advance and quickly injecting epoxy into them one after another, then reload the syringe and carry on injecting epoxy until you either run out of prepared lamp shades or the epoxy sets up on you.
I'd have made a snake of blu-tak to support the cups, just push them into it as you went along. I'm using it more than helping-hands nowadays.
I think you could mix the resin in a small plastic bag, cut one corner off and use that like you would use a glazing syringe. Also, PLA is biodegradable, BUT it needs a pretty specific environment to be palatable to bacteria. It has to be warm, humid and alcaline. Stored on a shelf it will last for ages, though it will soak up moisture over time and become brittle.
I love those coloured NE2s. Also I learned the word "footery".
I think there is a d and a g in there somewhere.
@ChayD Do you know what "fankle" means?
You could say, "She got herself all in a fankle with it" or "Those necklaces are fankled" ?
It means kind of like jumbled up or in a tangle or knot.
Old Scottish is dying oot
I thought he was saying "frittery", meaning very fiddly or finicky.
@@Petertronic i've always heard it as "flittery"
@@gd.ritter I've always heard it as "Frittery"
I have a hot melt glue gun that has attachments, one is a small tube type tip. You can inject the hot melt glue right in to the area. Works great with PLA. Also the 3d printer UV resin is water thin, a eye dropper would fill the area and then just cure.
Reminds me of the good old days of fatal Christmas lights with 240v AC running through them
So we should do this every day all the time forever and ever, got it.
Looks like a job for the acrylic hot melt. It's pricy compared to standard hot melt, but stickier, softer, and more durable. It's also more fluid when melted. Melting temp of the printed parts might be an issue though. Takes a special gun (I have one) but can do amazing things.
If I remember correctly PLA needs quite a bit of heat to degrade,plus moisture. The paper I read said it takes several weeks submerged in a 60°C bath for thin (2 cm or less) chunks of PLA to biodegrade completely. I don't know how long it'd last in the wild though.
Clive - buy a batch of 20 non-medical syringes from Amazon / eBay. I use 'em for filling fountain pen cartridges but I bet they would work for super sloppy resin. Discard the blunt needles provided, just suck the goop from the shot glass and then squirt it into a moulding. They have about a 2-3mm hole in the nozzle. You'd be able to do quite a few lights per syringe before the resin dried in the nozzle.
those self mixing tips on epoxy are amazing, i used to use those for various things at my last job... i think it was sticking epoxy into trailing edges of propeller blades
I'm thinking low temp hot glue sticks for potting. I'm not sure what your filament melt temp is but injecting hot glue would be pretty fast.
PLA is biodegradable, but it requires 60°C temps. The bigger concern with outdoor usage is the fact that UV light can damage pla, causing it to warp and discolour.
PETG is an amazing plastic that's a little harder to print, but is stronger than pla or abs and can resist UV damage.
You've done well! I'd be interested to see how well the 3d plastics go out in the weather.
Epoxy resin foreseen to use with glass fiber cloth runs like water, so maybe more appropriate. Easy to get in syringes, but runny, have to hold your bits open side up. Hot glue may melt or deform the pla, acetic silicone is corrosive, UV cured resin is very nice, but a nice glue that I recently found to be very effective on pla, mix-free and relatively fast curing is sold under various brands like repair'extrem, (pattex) , bison here on Belgium has a similar one. Clear glue, with a very distinctive eucalyptus smell. Look for "polymer" glue on the package, or something similar. Seals like silicone, kind of solvent-free, stays slightly flexible, ideal for leather and rubbery think as well. Available in relatively large tubes with narrow tips.
That Poundland epoxy is excellent stuff, it also sticks glass an sets clear, you can also get a product called Miliput you mix two parts together to the size you need, Boyes stores sell that stuff, I'm impressed with Poundland adhesives, At one point Tommy Walsh put his name to some of there stuff.
I like your idea!!! I will try to make mine
Looks great despite the messyness.
I wonder if it would be easier with the cheap crystal clear runny resin available from China?
Not going to lie. I absolutely love coming home after work and watching your videos, Clive!
I'm a software developer, not an electrician, but I love how you approach things. Very interesting and makes me tempted to learn about electronics more.
That was fun! I won't do it myself because i'm a boring person.
Looks like fun!
5Thanks for sharing this with us Clive. Here in my country we have some disposable injection guns suitable for such projects. We call them syringes and are cheap. Yuk Yuk! Cheers, Billy in Canada
They give away disposable liquid syringes for oral medicines at a lot of pharmacies/chemists. Could make the injection of resin a lot easier.
Also, I love the copy/paste OpenSCAD code in the description :)
We've just been discussing the biodegradability of PLA in the context of airsoft BBs used in woodland. The consensus is that unless you're actively composting it, you're looking at 1,000 years, give or take.
You might want to try printing a nozzle for the resin tube that mixes them together and dispenses it with a narrower tip you can use to do this with less steps and less mess.
To minimize the mess, use syringes and dispenser tips for potting small things like these lights. Syringes and tips are available on Amazon or eBay
uv resistant is ASA material, its cheap but you have ot print it with high temp, you can print them and them make a mould form silicon and then cast them with led inside from resin :) also uv resistant resin otherwise goes yellow and water reppelant resin too, that would be jewelerry casting resin for exmaple is fine its food grade aswell for some reason
I was going to suggest ASA but noticed you did first.
Get some epoxy resin that's meant for laminating fibreglass - "laminating epoxy". It's much, much thinner and flows very easily, so you could easily fill up the cup before shoving the neon in. I really like the idea though!
Fun To Do, Fun to Watch, Too. Thanks for Always Putting Something Good on the wwweb.
You don't need some sort of "injection gun" for the resin. They sell it in syringes like that with a tip that mixes as you push it out. Just inject directly into each hole. Only need to replace the tip when it dries up.
You can also get glow-in-the-dark PLA in traditional green, red, and blue. What would be cooler than GitD fairy lights?
interesting stuff! I think the resin would flow out of a medicine syringe for pets. they are for liquid meds, and not a needle syringe. They come in many sizes.
Yes it does! They are cheap as chips from China and the poundland resin flows well even with the fine gauge ones.
Take a block of two by four and bore holes deep enough to clear the dome. That will hold it/them upright until the resin cures.
Use transparent silicone (with an injector) ... it’s easier to work with than the damn resin.
Better yet, use potting wax and just plug it with silicone at the end.
Potting wax flows very well when heated.
You could probably pick up a bunch of cheap plastic syringes off eBay which would make it a lot easier. They're cheap enough that once the resin starts getting tacky inside the syringe, you just throw it away and grab another. Best to go for the ones with the straight tips rather than the luer lock, otherwise you'd just have to get a bunch of luer lock nozzles to go with them, and you couldn't reuse them afterwards anyway. They'd also allow you to measure how much is necessary to avoid spilling the resin out the end when you insert the neon/LED.
I'd probably have a go at making a set myself, if my printer wasn't on the fritz. ):
The full sphere looks like a baby sodium post top ball light :)
Hi Clive.
The TT racer that you mentioned - Conor Cummins - was involved in a TT crash, which caused him severe injuries.
Fortunately, he made a full recovery and, despite his ordeal, is still racing today.
Road racing, of which the TT is the most well-known and prestigious event, attracts riders who have cast-iron balls.
For anyone wishing to see footage of the crash - th-cam.com/video/Y07yt87lhEA/w-d-xo.html.
So when I do for the resin would be amazing clear cast resin. It has an 30-minute working time. Set up overnight and is like 20 bucks for 24 oz bottles
What about trying clear silicon? You could inject more easaly.
La Kak i was thinking the same. Use a slow-curing one that doesn’t use acetic acid so it doesn’t corrode the wiring.
It would be difficult to machine silicon as it's hard and brittle. Probably have more luck with silicone. However, it tends to be hygroscopic (absorbs water) so it's best not used in contact with metal.
You'd have to go for neutral cure, the common or garden acetoxy silicone is great at attacking copper wires
Either way, a 30ml syringe with a 12ga dispensing needle would work much better.
I was thinking hot glue, if it isn’t too hot for the PLA. I’d just put it in behind the neon, rather than potting it solid. Perhaps print a step into the tube so the solidified glue has a bit of support against tugging out.
Quickly, carefully squirting hot glue up a tube of heat shrink works like magic.
What I've learnt from this video is:
a) potting your own fairy lights in resin is a pain in the arse.
b) neon looks crap compared to LED.
Next you should tack a capacitor to the leads of the neon after the resistors, and try some larger value resistors while you're at it -- in the megohm range? Then they'd all flash at different rates...
I totally understand resin troubles, I hate working against the clock with sticky messes. But you got me thinking, could you just put the resin in a bag, cut the corner off and pipette it in?
Next time you do this kind of stuff with the epoxy resin, get yourself a disposable plastic syringe with a stubby tip, they sell them in pharmacies/drugstores, you'll then be able to cleanly pickup some mixed resin from the cup and inject it into the small openings of whatever you're working on pretty easily and without making a mess .
Seems like a back-fill with something cheap and plentiful, e.g. hot-melt glue or even packing foam, would lower the amount of epoxy resin you'd need to use, while still keeping the ass end watertight (assuming the tips are already watertight, of course). Plus I'd love to see experimentation with hyperbolic & parabolic reflectors instead of spherical ones, with the various light sources. Nevertheless, I do love seeing this type of work, and you'll never know 'til you try. :)
Could there be an easier way to pot in the neons if you designed a two-part system for the 3D printed baubles? A short collar that gets resined in place that accepts the diffuser after curing. Would also let you re-theme a string of lights to customize it to the occasion. More work for the printer (and designer) though.
Hey Clive why not use a cheap syringe like those used to refill printer cartridges to squirt the epoxy down into the lamp holder?
A great project, but I was expecting you to be using the very old R-C Neon Flash circuit.?
It was very popular in the 70's, and before, when you could make potted "sculptures" with multiple neons that would each flash semi independently, powered by a small but high voltage DC source, such as the old 22V batteries, used to be used for camera flash systems. If I recall, they could last months?
For anyone who does not know the circuit, it was a large (megohms) resistor in series with a simple DC (~ 100V +) power supply, charging a capacitor that is connected in parallel with the neon. When the voltage reaches the neon strike voltage (70v?), you get a short flash. The capacitor is thus discharged and then it starts to charge again.
I never saw one with the fluorescent neons!. That would be great.. Time for some experiments? (please!)
Many thanks for such great videos
Dagnall
If you search my videos for Nixie you'll find an unusual variant on the neon relaxation oscillator.
Clive. The shot glasses are also sold in Wilkinson's (Wilko) there's more in a pack but I can't remember the price.
Wow Clive, i am a neon lover ❤️⚡
In Sweden, you just go to a pharmacy and ask for a couple of syringes to feed medicine to a toddler with, they're free and come in two sizes: 2 and 5 ml. Perhaps it's possible where you live as well? They're great for stuff like this, and adding spackel into old drill holes in teh walls etc.
Hey BC
Many thanks for your videos. I really enjoy them An education, entertainment, and your dulcet tones can...
SEND ME TO SLEEP!!
;-)
Im only a choppy boat ride from you! Lancaster.
As a new born in 61, you'll understand that you are nowt but a wippersnapper.
Honestly mate I truly enjoy and appreciate what you do.
Many thanks
Keep up the great work
Chris
@bigclivedotcom could you use a different resistor value and run them from 55VAC such as from a 110 bucket?
Would get you closer to a “safe” voltage for single insulated wire and fundamentally isolated so another safety bonus
Damn it - now look what you’ve done. Some poor sot out there is going to want to make a neon fairy light using only a 100 ohm resistor, and potted in epoxy, and then plug it into the mains! I predict way too much excitement, and the need for a change of pants! 🤣
That potential problem of maybe having too much excitement can be averted by leaving out the costly 30 cent neon bulb and using pingpong nitrocellulose lacquer in lieu of epoxy. That will also fix the problem of the lights being too dim.
couldnt you build a (siemens logo) controlled hot snot (gluegun) injector, which keeps the hot glue at the right temperature?
adding another clip which goes into the hot glue and pushes it to seal around ? so the glue is more used as a seal and the clip fixes the light in the holder.
For the double insulation you could always use a 230:24AC (or just a 230:24 to 24:110 if the low voltage doesnt work) transformer and smaller resistors ?
I salvaged a couple neons from something last year, but my being the undelicate type I am, I managed to break the leads off them trying to straighten them as carefully as I could, they're definitely not as robust as LEDs, especially if already having been fitted in something... :S
Instead of resin could you not use acetic silicone sealant, I like the blue crystal it looked awesome.
If you were going to make a long string I would think the best way to do the resin injection would be with a syringe (the type with a plastic end used for feeding fluid oral medicine to babies/pets, not the injection type with a sharp metal needle...) and to put the lamp/led in before the resin. also a small hole to let the air out at the lamp end as you inject the resin might be a good idea.
Mixing 2 part epoxy for doing little injections is made much easier using pound land cake piping bags, or actually and thickish freezer back will do. Mix with your fingers, cut off a corner and squirt.