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NeuronPlectrum — Perler Backlight Experiment
Published: 2012-08-06 01:36:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 1664; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 70
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Description
This is the first step toward a bigger idea that's probably not going to work out after all.I'd been watching a documentary about the notorious Toynbee Tiles and thought I'd start experimenting with text and Perler beads. Trouble is, fonts tend to take up a lot of space when you're dealing with small boards (I have bigger ones, but I'd want to fit a fairly big message onto it). The solution was simple: Braille. Six spaces, two across and three down, either represented by different colors or empty spaces makes for a surprisingly efficient way to fit a lot of text in a small space.
As for the backlighting, well...
The trouble with Perlers is that they have these holes in them. Granted, it's how they fit onto the pegboards and keep from sliding around when you're ironing, but the gaps they create can sometimes make it hard for the eye to decipher the overall image. Sometimes, of course, you can get lucky and have your beads fuse shut, making squares out of round pegs, but that only works if you're either working with something very small or you've got the strength of ten men to press down on your iron.
As a result, when you light it from behind, you don't just see the translucent beads, but you get light coming through the holes of your "background" which makes it stand out less. As such, you have to hold it at an angle to work, hence the slapdash photography here. One solution I'd thought of was taking a piece of black craft foam and cutting out a sort of lattice that would cover up the holes from behind. Trouble is, for it to work effectively, I'd have to cut out the shapes of the individual letters instead of just going line-by-line. If you're going to do that much work, you're better off just cutting the letters into the craft foam and using a gel for the backlighting.
It's a shame because I had a few other ideas for Perlers that would use the backlighting, like an old computer console made as a small box with an LED inside. I might still give it a go, but it'll be a while for me to work out the kinks in the system.
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Comments: 9
That's a pretty eye-catching piece, regardless of any issues with meeting your goal..
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I iron with the peg board under the beads and Keep Ironing till the holes in top are closed there is still enough room on the back to put LEDs or just a bulb of light.
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I think the pegs on my boards are too long because the only way I seem able to get the holes to close is to take it off as soon as they're even remotely fused and iron the other side. That way, the beads don't wrap around the pegs and tend to flatten more evenly. Ironing longer definitely seems to work (on a much bigger project I did just after this) but there's a tiny problem in that the black beads, if they get too hot, and/or the ironing paper's on its last legs, I get tiny black "specks" over the other beads, which melts into it. Generally unavoidable, but luckily I don't think I'll be using exclusively black to offset the translucent beads.
It's funny you mention LEDs, because that's actually the long term goal. I want to start making some boxes and put small LEDs into them for lighting effects. A normal lightbulb would be too big and (most importantly) too hot. Something I also tried, oddly enough, was my phone (you could also use a digital picture frame, which I'd recommend over the phone since you can get keychain-sized ones) running a slideshow in its photo folder. It made only certain parts of the sign light up, like the lights on some old computer bank or a neon sign.
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People that don't like the holes and wants squares usually iron the beadsprite with the pegboard, and when all the beads are melted they remove the pegboard and continue ironing until the holes are closed. You need maybe a much warmer iron to do that but it should be quite easy. I tried to do that effect once without removing the pegboard: the pegboard melted and it was nearly impossible to remove the finished beadsprite. 
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A friend of mine who does cross-stitches of sprites often uses Hong Kong knock-offs of popular games (including a NES version of Resident Evil), so often it's impossible to know who the designer is. Even with legit games, designers often weren't credited because of company policies, so it's a guessing game 9 times out of 10. In the end, if you just give enough information about the source, it serves the purpose of giving credit where credit is due. A paper trail is better than nothing 
I think if I'm going to start doing larger bead projects (mostly I've done Phantasy Star II-style sprites, which are fairly large, but more in height than in breadth), I'll definitely need to invest in a better iron. Right now, I'm just using a dinky little travel iron I bought years ago, not much use for anything bigger than the little tile you see above (the sprites are usually crapshoots in how they turn out because it's hard to iron them evenly; I've had to do repair work on at least two). I wonder if anyone's ever tried to use a steam press or one of those sandwich makers to do their ironing 
You're absolutely right about removing the pegboard; I typically take it off the second the beads are even a little bit fused on the front since I iron both sides anyway. Here, though, it was still a bit tricky because black beads and translucent ones are kind of a bad pairing; black beads are tough cookies when it comes to melting while translucent ones are lightweights. Luckily, I've never had a pegboard melt on me, but I'm definitely going to be extra careful when I work now. Thanks for the tip
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That is a very neat idea! I know sometimes when I iron really slowly and go in circles, it helps close the holes better. Takes a while, though.
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You're absolutely right. I just finished another project and tried going slowly and in circular motions.
Night and day.
Before my problem was that just putting pressure on the iron only worked for really small sprites or the edges of bigger projects. By going in circles, as you suggested, it really spreads the plastic out a bit and makes it compress outward instead of down. I was also impatient before because I worried about melting my beads too much and burning them (which I've kind of done before).
Granted, the new piece still has holes, but they're a lot less pronounced; it's really big, the biggest I've ever done, and black beads tend to hold a little more heat than the translucent ones, so they don't soften as quickly.
Thanks for the tip
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