Edge alignment is easy nothing manual about the build to misalign it.
The initial one I made was only able to take standard width 5050's (7.5mm) the floor will now take 10mm wide strips whatever the choice of LED is.
I have a flowmeter/valve coming which will reduce the striations even more with less nozzle airflow (thin is worse) but already the edges are fairly well flame polished by the laser. A quick wet and dry with 800 or 1200 might help but it is a suck it and see at this stage.
The shot with the text is edge on 4-6mm deep x 4.5mm cut one is 2 cut surfaces the other is two stacked 10mm deep (4 surfaces). The other is just some random range of speeds and powers edge on from the last few days playing side lit to show up the striations.
Plaything/Testbed initially then put it out there as a $ job maybe? Kids bedrooms, trophies etc?
![](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/?action=dlattach;attach=745209;image)
That edge is more than serviceable as-is. I was expecting the edge to me more bubbly, like the graphic object itself. I've cut my own with a saw/sanded 1200 grit/buffed with bare wool wheel on Dremel that didn't look much better.
What I'm talking about with alignment is the fact that the elements themselves are not centered in the window, but typically form a 1-1.5mm circle which can be even more offset to allow placement of the IC die in the case of addressable LEDs. With a 2mm thick piece of plastic (I'm guessing based on the pics you've shown) , as little as 0.2-0.5mm can be the difference from "barely" to "sweet spot" with the light-piping effect.
Alternately, you may find you need to actually burn away some of the material to get some "depth of cut" to make it refract the light visibly. Curious; I wonder how the folks who do the prismatic cubes made by laser-forming bubbles inside glass and acrylic set up their rigs; clearly focal point of the LASER is critical.
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif.pagespeed.ce.5xOqKkq0Co.gif)
As for selling curiosities made this way, you're going to be up against stiff competition with narrow profit margin. These things in every subject matter imaginable are coming from China by the boatload for $10-15 SHIPPED, and are being directly marketed as kids bedroom decor & nightlights. You'll have to play up the custom projects angle.
For moderately-sized projects you can buy the bases cheaper than you can make them, even if you ignore your time; like $5-10 each WITH REMOTE depending on size:
https://www.dhgate.com/wholesale/acrylic+light+base.htmlFor larger projects, you can probably do better with cheap 5050 RGB strip like the lightbar I made for my Taranis below; you can buy them from AliEx or DHGate for a few dollars WITH IR or RF remote. Just add 12V power:
https://www.dhgate.com/wholesale/search.do?act=search&sus=&searchkey=5050+rgb&catalog=#hpsearch1806 They also make it with addressable LEDs, but those tend to be more expensive.
It appears that most of these are intended for 4mm acrylic project material; that will definitely get around MOST of the "critical alignment" issues I'm talking about that you'll see with 2mm material. They also appear to use regular 5050 LEDs in most of them. I think the solution is to move to a 4mm material for your projects. Obviously it can be done pretty easily; oodles of folks already doing it for fun & profit.
https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2869https://youtu.be/HaYUlg4ouMs https://youtu.be/g0oSgxMlE0cCheers,
mnem
![](https://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x462/mnemennth/Taranis%20TOO%20EASY%20RGB%20Backlight%20Mod%20Rev%201/15.jpg)