LED Bezels for the Lazy - Print Bezels on Photography Paper and put the NeoPixels behind it

I have no skills when it comes to making nice cabinets. I can't cut, shape, or make anything neat. Everything I build looks like it was done on chemicals with a chainsaw. I wanted to use Neopixels for notifications in my alarm clock hack.

Glossy photographic paper can give a finished front but I still have to cut it to let the NeoPixels shine through. It turns out can see light through the Photographic printing paper I have. So I printed the dial and LED frame on the photographic paper and mounted an 8-light Adafruit Neopixel stick behind the paper. The dang things are so bright that the colors are easy to see and it hides all the bad cuts in the case.


This is the template I printed on the paper. The Neopixel stick is hot glued into a section of the clock face that was cut out. The square window sits over the LEDs. There are a bunch of markings that I used as guides when laying out the gauge and the NeoPixel window. I just glued the dial printout over the top of the existing Ikea Dekad clock face.

https://github.com/freemansoft/ESP8266-MicroPython/tree/main/freemometer-dekad

Video

The NeoPixes are very bright and easily shine through paper.  The dimmest white setting is a level of 20 with just the white LED of an RGBW set.


You can see the "frame" is off a little in the video.  I just adjusted the layout and printed a new face.

Oh the Horror








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Created 2023 02


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