Complete Farfalla neon transplant, storage vessel and subsequent LED replacement (LED I hear you cry....)

[Biff]

Before i go on off one thankyou to @Zaccaria Keith for his neon removal guide - thanks mate.

Okay, so i bought a new back glass from Coos in da Nederlands, thank you pleash. And very good it looks too!

But... I ain't no fool! If I swapped out the back glass and left the neon in, most likely after a few shows i will have a couple of holes in my spinky art work in front of the hot, UV emitting tube ends... So the neon has got to go,

Another but... The neon works fine and if i ever move the table on, i want the transformer and neon to go with it so that it is all together. Neon very fragile, me clumsy kunt. So i need to be able to keep it safe...

Que storage thing, that will hence forth be called 'Fred', Fred the Farfalla Neon Storage Vessel.

Before i get to that a couple of shots of the tube ends. I had to cut back the heat shrink with a dremel
and a craft knife (such fun) to expose the connections between the tube ends and the HT leads - conductors just twisted together.





Fred was two shets of 1" ply, cut to the area of the tube: -





I then PVAd a couple squares of ply to act as spacers and fixings to create a sandwich. Note it was not deep enough so i later had to stick another bunch of sqaures on top. When the glue dried a couple of screws in the corners of the blocks to ensure a good fixing to the board.

Now i need a bit of padding.

Que 9issed of Mrs and the missing Yoga mat...



A few staples later and we have a nice shock absorber. Then lay the tube, carefully, over the top to get the location of the three sprung suspension screws.



Now cut out location of the three screws:-





Now i need to do the same width other side of the sandwich. Note i needed to fold over the padding to create a thicker layer so it slightly makes contact with the tube, note the insulation tape - this stops the staples ripping through.



A bit of red paint (was small blobs) on the four blocks then lay the other half of the sandwich on top so the paint marks where i need to drill some pilot holes for the screws to secure the other side.



Screw them both togethoer and I have a nice Fred Vesel. I can now start wok on the LED bit...



The sandwich on its edge.



Some fetching straps to secure the cables of the HT transformer (screwed to the front) - shocker in disguise...



Next part due soon, i bet you just can't take the tension, the high tension... see what i did there, HT...

 

[Biff]

Part 2 the revenge of the sisters brothers friends dad- the LED.

So now the neon is safely tucked away in the roof, i can now install this really funky flexible neon replacement LED stuff - it is great!!! Gonna get some green for Halloween.

I also have a dimmer, as it is way too bright direct from the LED driver PSU.

Here she is before with the neon. And yes i forgot to light it up - sorry!


With the power off, snip the 240v conductors that lead into the HV transformer, screwed to the left side of the head - leave enough on both the cables from the transformer and from the loom, just in case you or someone else later on wants to put the neon back in.


Do put some connectors on the hot side of the cable in case you forget and you switch the machine on, you then won't have live conductors jumping around like they do on all those earth quake movies from the 70s and 80s - like snakes in a pit - hmmmm

This is the kit i used and it cost around £65.00. Other colours are available. a 5m run could do 2 maybe three neon changes. You will need at least LED 7 clips, and the smallest LED driver from them will be fine or get your own. Dimmer was from Fleebay. Note you do have to send InStyle an email with the details of what you want, they then send you a quote then you order wand pay with the quote number ref on their website. This style of LED would be great for under lighting by the way if bling is your thing, check out the website (https://www.instyleled.co.uk/led-neon-flex-2/) for the choice of colours. You can get this LED from anywhere, with 'ina' in the name though...




I made a set of tales from some intruder alarm cable twisting three conductors together to make a thicker conductor size. I was lazy and and the stuff i had was Goldey Locks, too big and too small so made my own porridge. 1mm stranded would have been fine. I also didn't fuse it after the PSU, might be a good idea to put a 2A fuse in line, just to avoid the possibility of a LED strip malfunction and a fire. The hot side is covered by a 5A back near the main PSU in the body. So after soldering these on to the small contact pads on the strips (another reason for small CSA cable) i put a bit of heat shrink around the cable and the LED strip to act as strain relief so the solder joint doesn't take any mechanical load otherwise they wouldn't last 5 minutes.

Next i screwed the 7 brackets to the head, through existing holes, again minimum amount of damage to the head: -

Then i put the PSU and dimer in the location that the HV transformer was in, you will need to drill a small pilot hole through the metal EMC screen before you try and secure it with screws or you will just skid around on the surface:


For the connections on the end of the conductors i used ferule crimps, as the cables terminate in a screw terminal and you can always be sure that they will stay connected and it is easy to take them in and out many times - not sure if i have enough crimps and crimp tools here though...

Now we need to find the 230v AC (Live) conductor out of the two that were connected top the HT transformer.

Connect everything up and power up and set the dimmer:-








Luuuuurvly.

As yo can see the old back glass has mange. Just waiting for the right size trims and then will put the new glass in. Will send a further pic once in.

Here is a teaser though...

 

[Biff]

Lift bar fitted to new glass and glass fitted. I had to nibble out some of the wood at the top to fit the trim on the side at the top.



Trim bar was from the Legend, Andy, fit like a glove with some thin double sided tape, stuck to the non-printed side and the lower edge of the glass.





I was going to sell the old glass, but packing it away i manged to extend the small crack into a much bigger one...

Oh buggah!