Light Bar Assembly Instructions

I am getting ready to sell a few of my new RepRap light bar kits and am providing assembly instructions here:

First verify you have all the parts:

The Red LEDs have a different resistor value than the rest.  Ensure that this resistor stays with the Red LEDs.

Take the Red LEDs and resistor and bend the resistor leads to fit the holes on the PCB.  The Red LEDs go in the spots marked "1" with the long LED leads going to the square shaped pads.  The resistor goes in the spot marked "R1." 


Solder them in place:


Repeat this for the remaining LEDs taking care to do them one color at a time to avoid mixing up the LEDs.  They each have a number on the label that matches a number on the PCB.





On the opposite side of the board place the 5 pin right angle header


Then using the edge of a table or other flat object gently bend all the LEDs down to a 30-45° angle (The exact angle will depend on your carriage and hot end, so bend them to optimize the light on your print area.)



Mount it to your carriage connect the "G" pin to ground and the "1"-"4" pins to switched 12V (1 is Red, etc...).





More pictures here

New light bar PCBs

After making my last light bar I had a few people ask me about buying one.  So I fixed the issues I had with my first iteration of the PCB and had 3 more made using DorkbotPDX's PCB service.  These boards are much nicer than the one from BatchPCB and they came faster as well (it is also cheaper if you need 3 of each board).

 

It should now fit on a standard Mendel carriage, Rhys-Jones multi-material carriage, and a Prusa carriage.

I love the purple solder mask and the silkscreen detail it very nice.  I plan to assemble one of them to check that the changes I made to the PCB work as expected.  After that I will have a production run made and have kits available to purchase.