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Color Changing Edge-lit coffee table (hundred dollar bill table)

All > Tech > Inventions > Color Changing Edge-lit coffee table (hundred dollar bill table) by illuminator

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This design was born out of my fascination with edge-lighting. I love the way light catches the engraved design & jumps out at you seemingly floating in mid-air.
This particular table was a prototype I built over three years ago while I was working
for Gulf Fiber-Optics company. (the lighting type of fiber-optics not communication) The company built endoscopes for illuminating the insides of people during surgery. Working with these glass fibers everyday gave me
an appreciation for how small and concealable these illuminating fiber
really are. Much smaller than even L.E.D.'s

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The Fiberoptics company President (Chris Kerns) donated the break room coffee table (he was not exactly sure what I planned on doing with it) but wasn't going to stand in the way of the latest exciting fiberoptics application. The Table was old
but luckily it was all wood and no Mica...So it was refinished with black laquer & polyurethane. The top frame which holds the glass was detached. Then the frame was routed out wide enough to hold the fiber-optics The fibers were installed and epoxied into place. Then the frame was mounted back onto the table using wooden pegs. The fiber-optic tail hich connects to a light box is held tight in a silicone sleeve. The fiber-optics that were used in this table are high quality glass but you can make this table with the more common and much less expensive plastic fiber-optics.

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The next step was to get the glass engraved. The dimensions were to large for a normal laser engraving bed, so I needed services of south floridas captain splane. (AKA matt splane) Owner of immaculant Concepts. Matt has a large laser machine & laser engraves images with photographic details. The top was engraved & the table was ready for showtime. The illuminator that was used was a simple halogen mr-16 type with a color wheel. I have a nice but shakey video of this table in action. This is a fun project for anyone to build. I have built these tables for a few clients but the fiberoptic tail that plugs into the illuminator was just not practical for home or commercial use. see pic... So over the years the table evolved to use a miniture battery powered l.e.d. illuminator that fastened to a leg on the table. Although not as bright as the halogen illuminator it is a much more practical
design. My latest tables have been built completely from raw materiels wood &
frmica then backlit with a color changing l.e.d. system using a milky white acrylic top as light diffuser. (the same materiel you see in doctors offices in that little box on the wall where they display the x-ray photagraphs) & complete with a cordless remote control. The color changing effects on these tables are absolutely breathtaking a slow and steady morph over the entire color spectrum. Hundreds of differnt options from the cordless remote control.
Although those tables are great I find my most enjoyable work restoring
an old relic of a table and adding an exciting & innovative lighting
system to really make a unique and truly one of a kind custom work of art.
One of my phrases I like to associate with my business model & Lighting
designs is The fusion of Art & Light. My latest furniture mods
are really taking it to that level. My next table modification post at cre.ations.net will be annother groudreaking design that focuses on the subtle
illusion that u.v. light can provide if applied at the right intensity.
Below is a picture of a built from scratch formica tables. These tables
are a more practical design because I could cre.ate them from the ground up and incorporate a lighting system that uses a cordless remote control. You can even
control multiple tables from one controller!

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For me it's not were your at it's the path you had to take to get there. Even though the hundred dollar bill engraving is long gone (gave it away to a signage agent from Atlanta who I never heard from again) I still kept my first table & never plan to give it away or sell it. To me impractical as the design may be it represents a genesis of edge-lit table design forever frozen in time.

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You can check out some more of my work at http://www.lumanation.info
Also look for postings of my latest lighting innovations coming soon!

Video:

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