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So I was feeling like my cheap Chinese tube reservoir was looking a little boring so I picked up a 6 foot long rod of 3/8" acrylic from the local plastics store for $4.00 and started messing around with some LEDs I had. The 3/8" acrylic rod fits pretty nicely into a random g1/4 plug I had in my parts box. I just drilled a hole through the plug to run the wires through. I ordered some pre-wired LEDs as I am out of thin heat shrink and I didn't want to short anything by letting the wires make contact with the metal plug. Really the only things left for me to do are to wait for the LEDs to be delivered tomorrow and experiment with different glues for attaching the acrylic rod to the metal plug (I figured it should probably be water tight what with the electricity flowing through the LED and the fact that having a non-water tight reservoir seems like a bad idea).
Oh and I need to find some rougher sandpaper for frosting the acrylic rod. The lowest I could find around the house was 800 grit that I used for lapping a CPU a while back, and while it worked better than the 2000 grit I tried at first, it still isn't as frosted as I would like.
The pictures make it look much much much brighter than brighter than it actually is in person.
I figure that someone must have done this before, but I wasn't finding anything with my searches.
I'll post more pictures tomorrow when it should be finished and inserted into my reservoir.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions.
Random cheap g1/4 plug I found in my spare parts box. I was surprised by how easy it was to drill through it considering that I didn't have any drill bits meant for use on metal.
Drilling a hole in the acrylic rod with my drill press was actually tougher than I expected as it seems to melt the acrylic and gunk things up. Also, keeping the rod straight up and down was tough. In the end the hole wasn't really centered or straight, but it shouldn't matter as it won't be visible. Oh and I still have over 5 feet of the acrylic rod left if I need to try again.
Inserted into the g1/4 plug.
G1/4 plug screwed into the tube reservoir cap.
Oh and I need to find some rougher sandpaper for frosting the acrylic rod. The lowest I could find around the house was 800 grit that I used for lapping a CPU a while back, and while it worked better than the 2000 grit I tried at first, it still isn't as frosted as I would like.
The pictures make it look much much much brighter than brighter than it actually is in person.
I figure that someone must have done this before, but I wasn't finding anything with my searches.
I'll post more pictures tomorrow when it should be finished and inserted into my reservoir.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions.
Random cheap g1/4 plug I found in my spare parts box. I was surprised by how easy it was to drill through it considering that I didn't have any drill bits meant for use on metal.
Drilling a hole in the acrylic rod with my drill press was actually tougher than I expected as it seems to melt the acrylic and gunk things up. Also, keeping the rod straight up and down was tough. In the end the hole wasn't really centered or straight, but it shouldn't matter as it won't be visible. Oh and I still have over 5 feet of the acrylic rod left if I need to try again.
Inserted into the g1/4 plug.
G1/4 plug screwed into the tube reservoir cap.