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Neopixel Lighted Unicorn Night Light

Posted by Chris Carpenter on

Neopixel Lighted Unicorn Night Light

I found an old glass unicorn I've had since I was kid while cleaning out some old boxes.  It originally came with a white incandescent light and was a night light.  I wanted to use it again but wanted it do more than just light up with a white light. I have an Adafruit Circuit Playground Bluefruit (CPB) that has a built in Neopixel ring. Its the perfect size to light up my unicorn.  So I generated a 3"x3"x2" box on MakeCase.  If you haven't used it the site is awesome. It lets you enter the dimensions of your box,...

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Customized Lego UCS Millennium Falcon Coffee Table

Posted by Chris Carpenter on

Customized Lego UCS Millennium Falcon Coffee Table

My wife bought me the Lego UCS Millennium Falcon (75912) for my last birthday. Its a beast!  7541 parts and an absolute beauty when complete.  It took me a few weeks to assemble it.  For something this big, I needed a proper place to display it.  I've seen it hung on walls, set on shelves and even suspended from ceilings. For me, I feel the only thing that does it justice is its own display table.  So I decided to design and build one. I also wanted it to be customized since it was going in the basement where the...

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Acrylic Sneeze Guards for NASA

Posted by Chris Carpenter on

Acrylic Sneeze Guards for NASA

I was recently contacted by NASA at Wallops Island VA to build some acrylic sneeze guards for their launch control room.  They have an upcoming launch and to minimize the chance of COVID-19 inflection, NASA wants to install sneeze guards between each of the control room stations.   Because of the COVID-19 outbreak and the volume of businesses that are installing  acrylic protective barriers, acrylic sheets have become harder to obtain.  I contacted some local acrylic suppliers and managed to get an order of acrylic sheets.   We settled on 36”x 36”, 1/4” thick clear acrylic sheets.  The bases were...

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LED Edge Lit Control Panel for Arcade Cabinet

Posted by Chris Carpenter on

LED Edge Lit Control Panel for Arcade Cabinet

Since I’ve been stuck at home a lot during COVID-19, one of my projects  was to rebuild the control panel for my arcade machine. I built the machine over 10 years ago and at the time I installed generic black buttons.  I wanted to do lighting but to save costs I kept it generic.  LED lights now are pretty cheap and easy to install.  I wanted to light the panel but I didn’t want to stop with just lighted buttons.  I wanted something that would make the whole panel pop. The original cabinet.    I decided to engrave the top...

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CCHobby Designs Lighted Signs for the FAA Challenger Space Operations Room

Posted by Chris Carpenter on

CCHobby Designs Lighted Signs for the FAA Challenger Space Operations Room

CCHobby recently designed 20 lighted nameplate signs for installation in the FAA Challenger Space Operations Room. CCHobby nameplate signs can be customized with any text, graphics or photos.  CCHobby was chosen because of another well received lighted sign installation at Wallops Island for NASA. The install called for the signs to be mounted on poles next to monitors in a control room style layout.  Custom 3D printed mounts were designed for the signs along with the logos and text. The mounts and signs all cam out great and the customer is very pleased. Here are some pics of the signs. ...

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