Lights on, y'all. This is a continuation to a past post. I've wanted to put together something to display my collectibles dust-free for some time, but have always put it off for that "perfect timing"... what exactly was I waiting for though? I didn't have an answer to that. Let's give this display case thing a try... and while we're at it, let's get our hands into LED lighting as well.
Took an unusual approach to this project. I gave LED strips a try for the 1/64 cars in the bottom half of the display, ran 3 strips per row, and stuck them to a sheet of foamcore which I can then mount onto the shelf. This just makes the whole setup more modular and less tedious to modify if the LEDs needed to be removed. I was distraught to find this happening:
So the schematic for the wiring goes like this. From the LED controller, 3 strips are ran in series, then ran up to the next set of 3 strips which account for the second shelf. For whatever reason, nothing happened during testing, but once I put the hot glue in place, the end of the first strip begins to burn on the voltage line. Thinking it was just a bad strip, I trimmed off the last section and wired in a new piece. Burns again! Did I short the thing twice?! What gives!? To keep the long story short, I had to redo the wiring so the strips at the back of the line weren't pulling a ton of voltage through the first. This made very little sense to me as the product out of the package was a 5 meter strip that didn't have any issues powering up this entire length.
Either way, I finally got it working after an adequate test.
Next, lighting the figures. Went the IKEA route on this one to give those OMLOPPs a try.
Top row of lights were ran directly through the back board, since they won't be going anywhere else.
The lower row can always be moved around, and so accommodating potential changes, I put the hole through the backboard, but directly behind the shelving board. Yes, a hole is ultimately still visible, but being off to the side should make things more discreet. Speaking of discreet...
2-piece foamcore L-bracket was glued in place to hide the wiring.
Voila! It's so pretty!
This isn't the final arrangement by any means. I'll be taking out Saber and the bike eventually, or I may shift the middle row upward to put the glass pane back in.
I future-proofed this setup by purchasing the 10-slot power supply. In the event the LED strips aren't doing it for me any longer, I won't have any issues installing another set of 4 lights.
