Printing Acetate Sheet

[John Besley]

Can someone help me, I need to build an illuminated Fire Exit light box, this will be back lit with a grain of wheat light bulb as I work in 7/8ths with the word EXIT printed.

 

I've written this up in a word document but need this printed out on an acetate sheet so it can be mounted in the light box.

 

Any ideas as I cant print on anything other than paper.

Edited July 6, 2021 by John Besley
Spelling

[Philou]

There used to be acetate sheet that had a special coating one side to permit printing. I used it a few times - but quite sometime ago now and I don't recall who was the supplier.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Dave John]

I did some light up signs with overhead projector film for inkjet printers. 

 

I would suggest LED rather than gow lamps to keep the heat as low as possible. 

[John Besley]

2 hours ago, Dave John said:

I did some light up signs with overhead projector film for inkjet printers. 

 

I would suggest LED rather than gow lamps to keep the heat as low as possible. 

Good idea on the LED .... just need some help on the printing...

[ISW]

12 hours ago, John Besley said:

Can someone help me, I need to build an illuminated Fire Exit light box, this will be back lit with a grain of wheat light bulb as I work in 7/8ths with the word EXIT printed.

 

I've written this up in a word document but need this printed out on an acetate sheet so it can be mounted in the light box.

 

Any ideas as I cant print on anything other than paper.

John,

 

You can't use an inkjet printer with plain acetate film. Well, you can but you just end up with a 'puddle' of ink. Surface tension wins as the acetate is too 'slippy' and has no surface texture for the ink to 'grip' onto. I know, I tried it as home years ago ...

 

In the case of laserjet printers, plain acetate just gets melted by the heat fusing phase of the laserjet process. Yep, been there did that in an office ~25-years ago. The single office LaserJet was out-of-action for a couple of days. Oops ...

 

For an inkjet you need to buy special plastic film. I bought a box of 50-sheets ~10-years ago while working in Malaysia, and it was expensive and rare back then. Nowadays just search for "inkjet transparency film". The one I have (Apollo brand box of 50-sheets) is currently available on Amazon (US) for ~£32. Other brands are also available on eBay for less than £10 for 20-sheets.

 

Ian

[Izzy]

Just search for inkjet acetate. Hobbycraft do 5 A4 sheets by stix2 @ £3.50. I have used it and it works well. There’s a fine rough coating on one side for the ink to adhere to. Lighter tones don’t show too well, but for what you want, a black background with clear lettering, it should work fine.

[Bill Radford]

PC Line (used to) do Universal Transparency Film - "For use with all Inkjet and Laser Printers". It's some time since I brought it and only used it with a Laser. It was bought from either Staples or Rymans some years back. Worked OK for Scalescenes windows.

[d00m]

You can print on tracing paper, if you aren't bothered with the unprinted area being slightly opaque/grey.

Advantage is,  it's dirt cheap and you can practice print as many as you want

[John Besley]

On 06/07/2021 at 19:50, Dave John said:

I did some light up signs with overhead projector film for inkjet printers. 

 

I would suggest LED rather than gow lamps to keep the heat as low as possible. 

I've had the EXIT lettering cut on a silhouette cutter and now fitted to an opaque piece of plastic, made up the exit box and front cover which leads me to some help on low volt LED's please.if useing a 12v supply can they be sourced with a resistor as part of the fitting...

[Dave John]

Many sellers offer LED chips pre wired for 12 V dc. Often a 1k resistor is used.  In practice most of those will be far too bright and will need another series resistor to dim them. 

 

I usually wire a 10 K variable resistor in series to start with , adjust till is the right brightness. Measure the value and replace with the nearest suitable resistor. 

 

One of hundreds of examples

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164264301099?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818143230%26meid%3D3dfd9435ff514065bc09d24d3f2e37e7%26pid%3D101224%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D164383688914%26itm%3D164264301099%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DDefaultOrganic%26brand%3DUnbranded&_trksid=p2047675.c101224.m-1

 

To put it in perspective my station building is lit with 27 leds . Series resistance 5.6 K ohms and I use a dimmer to drive them.