So, I'm building an amp rack for my gf, 40 inches wide, to fit her two amps, now my questions to you fine gentleman are these.
I want to have a top covering the amps, but i want to cut her nickname into the top and have blue neon shine though (chicks love this ) What would be the best way to do this? I wanna do carpeted wood, but i have a friend that cuts plexi, If I cut it out of the plexi too will it catch more light and pop more?
and second, if i get car under glow, like these:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/NEW-Undercar-4-Pi...3A1|240%3A1308
will they be able to take the vibration from the subs?

 

Its hard to tell by the picture they have, but I assume that mounting the light is done by putting a screw through the black end caps.
If that's the case I'd suggest you get some rubber washers to put between your mounting surface, and the screw holes on the tube.

I'm sure you can find these with varying levels of elasticity. I'd get something on the softer side.
My logic is that this little piece should help to absorb some of the vibration, and therefore put less stress on the neons... It'll only cost a few cents.


Are the lights going to be hidden from view under the cover? I'm not sure how you'd hide them if the entire thing was plexi.

 

What I meant by that is if I put the plexi OVER the wood, cut exactly the same, would the edge of the plesi make it pop more or should I just do the wood...

 

Forget the wood. Cut the name in the plexi and then edge light it. The clear bit that is not cut will stay clear but the edge where it is cut will light up. Very nice effect.

 

I think Dukk is referring to refraction. The light bounces around "inside" the plexi, then when it reaches the edge it'll appear to glow from within.

 

This would work very well but I would suggest using LED's instead of the neons. The neons are much, much more sensitive to vibration and more expensive as well. I've never seen neons last for very long in any car application especially in the trunk.

 

get a plexi that glows in the dark and use a black light hehehe that would be nice

 

LEDs burn out and those neons are a wrong move away from a break. I went through 12 of them in 2 weeks cause they kept breaking.

Check out ELWire. It's 1 ended biochemically lighted with an AC inverter... meaning you hook it up at one end and you can cut the other end to length without worrying about a return for grounding.

I did my hyundai pony in this stuff with each color flashing to different levels. Lasted for 2 years before I pulled it all out and sold the car. I still have it around somewhere and it still works. Just be carefule not to bend it over and over again as the bio stuff will wear out.

On top of it's it's about $2 a meter with an inverter from the right places.

I used to get it from el wire cheap.com offers neon wire and el wire in 10 electroluminescent wire colors as well as cold cathodes and ccfl kits. but they now point you to their provider.

Run this stuff along the edge of some plexy and any scuff marks onthe plexy will come out bright.

I did my whole car for about $20. You can get this stuff from computer stores, but the markup is sickeningly high.

There's ELTabe, ELWire, ELSheets for all kinds of applications.

 

LED's will NOT burn out provided they are hooked up correctly. In most cases they are NOT 12v and resistors are need to make them reliable. Just google it and you'll see. There's a calculator that tells you what resistor to use with how many LED's and what color they are(Different color's have different power requirments) It seems compicated but really isn't. When I find the link I'll post it.

 

wow thanks for all the ideas guys, I guess i just want like the blackout effect except for the "cut out" any ideas for that?