I thought I would share the results on here for anyone else who might be interested in doing this.
Firstly I decided that I wanted an 8ft X 2 ft sign to suit my garage, this is approx two thirds the size of the original Dealership signs as they were 11ft 4in X 3ft
I visited a sign maker who does a bit of work for my business and explained what I was trying to do, he kindly made a few samples for the actual sign and I agreed on a style/method and he went ahead and made me two signs (the second one is for Barry, DBro 2).
The sign is made from 5mm thick opaque acrylic sheet with vinyl sheet stuck on the face to produce the lettering. The opaque acrylic material is ideal for diffusing the backlighting.
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There is another method of making the sign front by using a clear acrylic sheet and a stencil with aerosol paints which would probably work out to be a bit cheaper but I decided to go this route as it is quite labour intensive and would take a great deal of care to produce good results in my opinion.
I then set about making the sign housing complete with white LED backlighting.
The back board is made from 12mm thick MDF, 2440mm long X 610mm High (exactly half of a 8ft X 4ft Sheet). I drilled a 10mm dia hole near each corner for the fixing screws for the sign, I done this so that I didn’t have mounting lugs showing on the outside of the sign.
I made the frame from 2” X 1” aluminium C Channel which I bought precut from my local metal supplier, I even got him to cut the mitres just to save me having to do it myself. The dimensions of these pieces were 2 off at 2450mm long and 2 off at 620mm long, this gives a gap of approx. 2mm all round to the edge of the acrylic (you don’t want it tight).
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For my sign I needed to slide the sign panel in from underneath once the sign housing was fixed to the wall so the bottom rail was left loose from the housing but the three other edges were fixed. Countersunk clearance holes were drilled in the aluminium and corresponding clearance holes were drilled in the MDF backboard, the aluminium frame was then fixed to the backboard by woodscrews which were screwed straight through into 27X27 PAR softwood around the perimeter of the MDF.
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The result of this was to give me a 7mm gap which was ideal for the sign to slide into
Four countersunk holes were then drilled into the bottom rail in the 2” face so that it could be fixed to the softwood once the sign was slid in.
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I also screwed a softwood rail across the backboard and two vertical rails in order to give the sign some extra support and to provide some light separation inside of the housing
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The LED light strips come on a 5 metre roll and are the 60 LED/metre 3528 SMD’s which have ample brightness for the application, I bought them off EBAY, here is the link; http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161451028747, I needed 3 lots of 5 metres for this sign, there are 4 lengths behind the bottom lettering and 5 lengths behind the top letters, when I make the next sign I will use ‘jumper’ wires between adjacent strips rather than just continue with the strip. The strips are self adhesive and easily applied.
For anyone who fancies making a colour changing light please be advised that when set to white these lights have a slight pinkish tint so this is why I opted for single colour white.
For each 5 metre length used, the consumption is 2 amps so I bought a 6 amp power supply, again off Ebay to power the sign, dimmer controls are also available if required. For this sign I just drilled another hole in the MDF and ran the two 12v wires out of the back.
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Once the LED’s were fitted and connected I scuffed over the aluminium frame with some medium wet and dry and then sprayed it firstly with two coats of etch primer followed by a few coats of matt black.
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To fix the sign to the wall I simply used four large screws with some large penny washers.
Once the sign housing was screwed to the wall, I slid the sign in and fixed the bottom rail in place.
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The guys who made these signs for me are really good, they now have the artwork all set up and they can easily produce any size sign up to this size (4 : 1 aspect ratio).
I am due to place another order with them in the next few days so if anyone is interested in making one of these themselves please let me know and we can probably get a good price if we order a batch.
The approx. total cost of the sign materials was as follows;
Acrylic sign ( 8ft X 2ft) £260
Aluminium £65
12mm MDF (full sheet) £18
PAR soft wood £12
LED’s £30
Power supply £15
Aerosol paints £30
TOTAL £430
(I believe that a 4ft X 1ft sign will cost about £130 and obviously all of the associated other materials will be less than the above)
Finally, I would just like to give a mention to DMCTodayMichael who is a member on this forum and has done a lot of work on this subject himself, you can check out his video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcVtaP6sfN8
Cheers
Mike (DBro 1)
