Day 13: Thing 13 — Mold

Really, I made a rubber mold for casting resin .

I was given a section of a large display recently that was made up of 6 5×7 led modules. The modules were embedded in epoxy with the lenses built into the front. As most of the led drivers I have are 8×8 (and over $10 apiece) , building displays with the modules wastes a third of the driver. I thought I would try to build 8×8 arrays using the leds I got last week. I took one of the 5×7 arrays and pressed it into some DAS air dry clay and made an 8×8 pattern.

Then I attempted to make a positive using an expensive clear plastic material that I have never had much success with. After two attempts to get a decent positive I decided to try a wax positive using a large candle that was left in my apartment by the previous tenants. This was successful and so I went to make the mold.

The a part of the mold compound was so thick that it was almost impossible to work with. For a long time I wasn’t sure that it would set. But in the end I would up with a fairly decent mold. Tomorrow I will get some casting resin from tap plastics..