I decided to step away from the computer today and work on some hardware. Before I commit to a design I want to try out my ideas to see if they work as well as imagined, so today I went to the workshop and gathered some scraps of wood and plastic to try building one of the illuminated notes.

I had some blue plastic, but the only blue LEDs I had were these tiny surface mount ones. With tweezers and a steady hand I managed to solder them to a strip of protoboard.

Looking at the result I think I could do away with the board and just hot glue some bare copper wire onto a strip of wood or something. Then the LEDs could be soldered to the wire. That would be a huge effort saver when I make one of these for each note.

Next I cut some wood scraps, drilled a hole and glued things together. At first I wasn't pleased with the light diffusion, so I squirted in a bunch of hot glue to help a little. I was just experimenting here, so it is not pretty.

Then I placed a piece of plastic on top and turned it on. I am still not happy with the amount of diffusion, but I'm not sure how to improve it. Then again, it may be just fine. I'll play around with some other ideas. Let me know if you have a good idea.

As usual, I may be over-thinking this. There is probably a much easier, more elegant way to do this. But I'm out of time for today, so I'll try again tomorrow.