The architects initial rendering includes a small ‘TEMPORIS’ sign on the front window adjacent the front door:
The Temprois logo is made up of square blocks. These blocks are made up of different colors and shapes in some places, and there is some randomness to what block is what color or what shape between the venues website, menus, business cards. I decided the sign for the restaurants front window should be solid black and edge-lit with the ability to color change.
I originally chose 1/4 black acrylic for the face, but decided to go with P95 matte black acrylic for the final sign. The matte finish will look great against the glass window.
First step was vectorizing a drawing of the logo and sending it to the laser cutter. Luckily its a very simple design!
Always try things with cardboard first!
The Sign is made up of black acrylic on top, an edge of milk acrylic in the middle, and another black acrylic cutout on the bottom.
The first test looks nice! I am using 24V RGBWW LED tape. I chose this so I can use thinner wire coming out of the letters than 12V LED tape.
The hard part with the 24V tape is that it can only be cut every 4 inches. I need to adapt it with some tiny soldering and cut it in the middle of these cut marks:
In some places I fold the tape over itself to fit. I notch out parts of those places with a dremel drill press and an 1/8″ end mill bit:
The whole assembly gets tested 100 times, then potted with 3M low heat hot glue to keep the weather out. I also add some silver foil tape to the back of the rear letter plate to help reflect some of the light to the edge:
Everything gets clamped up for the night:
So far so good!
Here is the final product cycling through some colors:
As an added bonus I cut the address out for above the doorway:
Two happy co-chefs placing the sign for the first time:
