Humble Electronics #006 - Dice Tower 03.01

Time to make another lighted dice tower. This is for my brother-in-law so I wanted a simple safe power supply. I chose a 3 AAA battery box with a built in switch. One less component I have to solder in. I tried a 3 AA battery box also but it did not fit well.

I got some simple SMD break out boards from Amazon to solder my LEDs and resistors to. The board is made for 0805(2012) sized SMD chips and mine were 1206(3216). I played around with placement and soldered a set on a board. I then noticed my SMD resistor was 330 ohm. 

This would be fine for a 5 - 9V system, 6 - 18 mA, like in my second dice tower, but I wanted low heat dissipation and bright light at 4.5V. I placed a 330 ohm through hole resistor in parallel with the first set I soldered to get a brighter light. Now 1.5 V was dropped over 165 ohms with a calculated current of 9 mA. I was happy with the results but I knew I could get a little more out of the LED. I soldered up another SMD LED but changed the SMD resistor out for a 100 ohm through hole resistor,15 mA, and tested it out. The LED with the 100 ohm THD resistor was the brightness I wanted, especially since it was going to get a bit of diffusion over it. I'll have to get some 1206 resistors at a later date. It would help make the board tighter.

This was going in the direction I wanted. The THD resistors didn't quite fit across. I placed them with only one pin in the board. I made up three sets to go into the dice tower. I thought tripling my LEDs and lowering the resistance would get me the glow I hoped. I soldered up the board with two wires on each side first and I liked it. Then I got the bright idea that I could connect the grounds together and make it more compact. The boards came a long way from that first ugly one. I tested all three to make sure they lit up. 

In hindsight, I think I can put the resistors along the long side better but that may not be an issue if I get some SMD ones. I always put my resistors on the cathode (positive) end of the LED so its easy to see which end is which at a glance.

 

I put the LEDs aside and cut out the parts on the laser cutter. When they were primed, front and back, and UV resin windows put in, I got them back to figure out how to wire up the LEDs. I taped together three sides and a couple of the ramps for testing placement.

I soldered some leftover 30 gauge wire from another project to each board, heat shrink covered them as best as I could and tested the lights. They worked great. I covered each one, front and back, with low melt hot glue. I can be prone to touching it so I don't use the high heat hot glue. 

I started with the two highest and just taped them into place with some washi/masking tape while I figured out how I was going to run the wires. I secured the wires in place with tape also. I want to make sure they stay tight to the sides so they don't get caught up in the dice. I got the next ramp in that was going to hold a light. I got everything close to where I wanted it and closed it up with some masking tape to see the result.  I had to turn it upside-down to power it for the test. After testing, I removed the lights, and glued it up to prepare for installation. The clamping jigs are discussed in the Laser Cutter #006 post.

That's a good stopping point for now. I'll finish up the electronics in the next post. The finished tower will be in a Laser Cutter post. 

Happy Making!

Michelle