Vulcan's Tears

10 August 2018

A follow up of the wah pedal that I was building last month. It now has a name - "Vulcan's Tears". I decided that such an over the top name needed a name plate and a light-up bottom panel. If you're going to go over the top, go all the way.

I've done the name plate in acrylic, with a water slide decal for the lettering. I printed it mirror image, then sprayed over with the same red paint that I used on the wah. Then, sliding the decal on the back of the clear acrylic makes it all work out. Fastened using some M2 bolts.

Next job was the bottom light plate. I've used the router table to cut a sheet of red transparent acrylic to the same size as the existing bottom. Then, I put three LEDs into the middle of the acrylic, and covered them over with some white shiny photo paper to try to reflect as much light out the sides, and not leak into the inside of the pedal.

This worked out OK, but I wasn't happy with the amount of light. Time to add more LEDs.

I increased the number of LEDs to 5. This looks better. I'm still not sure if I should rough up the edges of the acrylic, to make it a more diffuse light, rather than showing the distinct LEDs. At the moment the sides of the acrylic is quite transparent, as I sanded it down to 2000 grit.