A lot of people have been posting projects about ambient orbs or LED night lights. I wanted to try something a bit different with LED lights. I’ve been doing some renovations in our ensuite bathroom and decided to test out an LED strip behind the glass tiles.
Some people may ask why… I’ve asked myself that a number of times. Bottom line is because I wanted to see what it would look like. Like a proof of concept, in case I wanted to do something like this when I start renovations on the main bathroom.
To sum it up, if you have to ask why then I don’t have a reason that would make sense to you!Â
Step 1 - Prepare the area
Finish tiling up to where you want the glass tiles to go
Punch a small hole in the wall for the LED strip to come through
Use a metal coat hanger to pull LED strip from under the sink. I used the hole where the water drains as the access hole below.
Put your tile adhesive on the wall
Step 2 - Place the LED Strip
Place the LED strip (remember to center it!!)
I actually put more adhesive over the LED strip, just wiping the area where the individual LED lights are located. This would likely help in keeping the tiles glued in place.
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Step 3 - Place Glass Tiles over LED strip
Place glass tiles as you normally would, ensuring it’s pressed firmly into the adhesive to ensure a solid grip.
Step 4 - Check out the bathroom bling!
The glass tiles should now look completely normal, you shouldn’t be able to see the LED strip unless your glass tiles are quite transparent. In my case there’s really no way of telling once the grout goes in.
FirgelliAuto.com has a TV Lift column for easily mounting a LCD or Plasma TV inside a cabinet and having it lift up with just the touch of the remote control button. It’s a telescoping lifting column so it’s quite compact and easy to fit into a cabinet or your custom furnature. It’s about 26″ when collapsed, and rises up to over 60″ when fully extended.
Check it out, I want one of these TV Lifts. If I only had the time to build a cabinet to put the TV Lift in!
Go here for more info and to buy an easy to use, powerful TV Lift.
If you do a search for linear actuators you will probably find a lot of industrial and very heavy duty actuators. These might be good if you’re running a large industrial manufacturing plant, but for light industry, custom cars and trucks, TV Lifts, and the weekend DIY warior check out Firgelli Automations where you can buy linear actuators online.
Linear actuators can be used in a variety of applications. Here are some of the most popular projects making use of linear actuators:
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In the house
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TV Lift - using a linear actuator to make a custom TV Lift.
This is usually done by lifting a plasma or LCD TV out of a cabinet with a linear actuator. You can have it connected to a remote control or a rocker switch, either way is pretty simple to control.
It can also be done by raising and lowering a panel on the wall with a pocket behind it. This is a great way to hide a TV.
Either way you should have good guide rails to ensure there’s no side load or twisting on the actuator.
This one is great for the boat or motorhome.
Automated home theater component rack - using a linear actuator to push out or raise a rack of home theater equipment.
Powered plasma/LCD TV movement - using a linear actuator to twist a flat panel TV that is hanging on a movable wall mount.
This can be just tilting the screen up or down, or if the TV is mounted on an arm you can rotate the TV to point in different directions.
Hidden Door - using an actuator to push our or rotate a bookshelf or large panel in the wall to reveal a hidden room. You could even hide a safe or other sensitive item behind the panel.
Powered Chair or Bed - tilting or adjusting with one or more actuators.
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Custom Cars, Trucks, and Hot Rods
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Powered Tonneau Cover - one or two linear actuators to lift the tonneau cover.Â
Powered Hood lift - again, one or two linear actuators to lift the hood at the push of a button.Â
Powered Trunk lift - one or two linear actuators to lift the trunk. Either a rocker switch or a remote control unit to control the actuators.
Flip down TV / Flip up TV - pop a TV out of a custom fit pocket. If you’ve been to SEMA, the custom car show, then you know that everyone and their dog puts LCD TVs in the vehicles… almost by the dozen. They are all through virtually every car or truck. What really stands out is having them motorized. This truly adds the WOW factor.
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Industrial automation
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Why push, pull, or dump widgets when you can get an actuator to do the repetitive action for you?
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Accessibility for people with disabilities
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Lift Table - one or two linear actuators to raise and lower a table or workstation.
Trunk/Hatch Lift - essentially the same as the custom car trunk lift, except with a focus on independence and functionality.
Wheelchair lift - to lift a wheelchair into a van or truck. I spoke with a fellow once that took this concept and built a lift for his cycle. He would go on long vigorous rides and be able to use the lift to get his bike into his truck. Great application!
If you are a into home automation or custom car projects then you’ve probably used or thought about using a linear actuator. Here’s a great source for linear actuators in the United Kingdom (UK). They ship to all of Europe from their UK website. They also have a linear actuators in the USA and linear actuators on their Australian website.Â
Linear actuators are great for TV Lifts, hood lift, tonneau cover lifts, drop down TVs, boat engine hatch lifts, and any number of projects you can imagine. My Dad and I are going to make a lift for his trailer so that if it’s a heavy load you can just get the actuator to push down and lift the trailer up so it’s easy to dump the contents out.
Problem:
My Mother-in-law has an Apple iPod Shuffle, but the computer doesn’t charge it. So she has to bring it over for me to charge. Not a big problem, she’s a wonderful person. But I wanted her to be able to charge her iPod and not have to wait to get it charged at my house.
Solution:
Take one of my old cell phone chargers, a Sony-Ericsson phone that I no longer use. I check the output voltage, 5.1V with 450mA. Looks good. I checked the USB specs and I believe it’s well within the acceptable range.
Supplies:
wall charger around 5V, providing around 500mA.
USB extension cable
soldering iron and supplies (unless you use a phsyical clamp)
Step 1:
Cut the adaptor off the wall charger, strip the wires.
Step 2:
Cut the female end off the USB extension cable, this is the end you need. Cut away the green and white wires (do a search for USB pinout, there should be a site.. something like pinouts.ru). Strip the red and black wires.
Step 3:
Verify the voltage and polarity of the wall wart with a multi-meter.
Step 4:
Solder (or otherwise connect) the red (+ve) wire of the charger to the red (+ve) of the USB extension cable.
Step 5:
Solder (or otherwise connect) the black (-ve/gnd) of the charger to the black (-ve/gnd) of the USB extension cable.
Step 6:
If you were using shrink tubing you would have put it on before Step 5.. I bet you’re wishing you would have read all the instructions first!  For a more ghetto look (or if you have run out of shrink tubing) tape up the exposed wires with some electrical tape.
Step 7:
Verify the voltage and polarity of the pins on the USB extension cable with a multi-meter.
Step 8:
Test on your own device before giving it to your Mother-in-law. She’s a dear, but you never want to test that relationship! Just kidding!
Conclusion:
Now you’ve saved the environment by not depositing both an old charger and a USB extension cable in the trash. However let’s not talk about the lead fumes you breathed in while soldering, or the fact that you nearly set your desk on fire (always remember to put soldering iron back in holder, even when phone rings!)
Pinouts:
Verify independently, but I saw this on a number of pinout diagram sites.
Ok, now that I’ve waited almost a year to finish the inside of the playhouse, I’m going to have to do it in style.
 I’m thinking something special.. how about a powered door that you can operate with a remote control? That has to be cool enough to make up for letting it sit unfinished so long.
On top of that I’ll have to build a little bench seat with storage, I’m thinking chaulkboard paint for one wall.. built in shelves, and some flush mounted low voltage lights.
Back to the coolest feature. I’ve got a left over linear actuator kicking around from a previous project as well as a remote control unit. I’ve got to figure out exactly how I’m going to install it, but I’ll post pictures as I go.
My Dad and I are building a playhouse for my daughter.. it’s nearly done, just a few more rows of shingles to put on.
On top of that, my Mom and Sister in Law came over for three days and whipped the gardens into shape by edging and trimming.. removing a trailer full of debris (and then some!).Â
