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A project log for ESPLux - Smarts for your downlights

A circuit you can place inline with your existing low voltage lights to allow for wireless control

mattMatt 07/17/2015 at 05:380 Comments

Howdy again!

In between working on the new firmware over the past little while, I have been designing the cases. My intention from the beginning, as you can see in my pictures, was to create a stack up of acrylic to build the case. I know this might not be the quickest way for production, but hopefully the design I have made is relatively easy to produce anyway.

The main reason for this design is the tools that I have. I have a laser cutter sitting here in my garage, one of the cheapie ones you can buy off eBay, but it has degraded over time and I can no longer cut through the thickness of material that I was planning on using. I also have a 3D printer, it makes spaghetti very well.

Anyway, I still wanted to go with the laser cut version, and then along came the mini contest from HAD for $100 credit with Ponoko, which I scored! Thanks HAD! Click past the break to see some images.

Here it is all compressed up.

And an exploded view

I am using three materials overall, 4.5mm black for the main body, 2mm clear for the top and bottom lids, and 3mm clear for the first spacer above the board.

The plan is for the 3mm clear to capture some of the light given off by the status LEDs. The top and bottom lids in future probably could be a solid colour, but for now, I wanted to see where so many hours of my life had gone :)

The purple is the OSHPark PCB.

You can see on two of the layers there are hexagonal holes cut in. The theory is that I can drop an m3 spacer in there that the top and bottom lids can screw into. I'll probably glue each layer together with acetone or some other glue so they don't move around too much. This will also stop the hex nut from falling out.

I have updated my github with all the relevant files, so if you want to get your own cut, feel free to download them!

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