The Lego™ cars in question are from the Lego™ Speed Series collection. I'm not a fan of all of them but these three I quite like and would like in a proper display case. I fancy something a bit special this time so I got my hands on an acrylic display case and began designing a display stand to suit the given size. This approach would work for any size as the design isn't all that complicated.
As always you can find all the STL files to download for free
on my Thingiverse page here.
Given I don't know exactly where the cars are going yet, I've designed a frame that allows the mounting bracket to move up and down on the rails. On each bracket is a slide so it can move left and right.
Finally the Lego™ mounting point can rotate on an M3 bolt which locks with a bolt below.
I want this display to have lighting so I'll be using a SMD LED bar from an Energizer™ closet lamp that's supposed to be USB rechargeable. On the bracket mount are 2 holes which both fit a cluster of 7 - 1mm fibre optic lines. These line up with the LED heads so they'll get direct light.
In front of each car I want a display sign with lighting. These signs are just 28mm wide, 11mm tall and 10mm deep, angled to the frame so they'll stand vertical not slanted forwards. The clear lenses to print are just 3 by 5mm... tricky but possible (with an FDM/filament printer).
The first half of the frame printed out and all the support brackets.
Both sides printed and glued together. Testing it fits correct in the acrylic display case, which it does.
I need to set the positions of the cars before I can go further, so I use masking tape to create a temporary surface and position the cars.
From below I can now nip up the nuts on the M3 bolt which locks the position and rotation of each car.
I still had model railway grass cover from the micro RC race track project and it suits this perfectly.
All the grass tucks in under the frame.
Each Lego™ mount is refitted through the grass.
The R34 Skyline is the car I really wanted additional lighting. So I did the one thing I've never done before and drilled paths through the lego carefully with a 1.2mm drill bit so fibre optic can pass through to the front and rear lights.
I don't want the light from below to be direct to the fibre ends otherwise the lights will be too bright and take away from the rest. So I trimmed the lines down so they only angle downwards.
Now for that Energizer™ USB rechargeable light. I removed the LED bar from the rest and added a 5-6v to 3.3v buck convertor to a micro USB board. Now I can power these lights from USB direct. I also get a 1000mAh 1S Lipo I can use on other things.
When doing tests I instantly found the grass doesn't block as much light as I'd like, in fact it glowed green pretty badly lol. I overlooked the obvious answer of Tin foil as TECHONIX from Adam Savages discord channel pointed out. Works fine and easy to shape.
Time to bond the fibre optic lines to the LED mounting brackets. Again 7 lines per hole is possible but I only need 13.. so I ran just 1 hole on each mount.
The LED bar is now mounted to the brackets which hold it at the same angle as the grass surface above where it'll mount.
A quick test to make sure I didn't bugger something up but.. I have light :)
Thankfully the little lenses for the lightboxes printed fine in HD glass filament. So all the parts are printed ready for some fiddly construction.
All the signs were painted with acrylic paint except the lightbox black which looks better as it is.
All the signs now bonded to the grass and the fibre optic lines ran into the lightboxes from below.
I designed two versions of each sign in case the clarity of the image sections was poor. However the prints came out excellent and now installed with another light test.
I want each of the Lego™ drivers to be out of the car at the front behind each sign. So I designed little stands which like the signs have an angle to suit the grass. The Lego™ figures just push into place.
I've added some fake shrubbery to each opposite corner and want to see the final light test. Some light is bleeding from below as its not just bonded to the acrylic case base plate. But overall I like how its came out.
While constructing I required full access from the back under the frame as its the only real way to access it once grass covered. However in final steps all the light comes out of the back, which isn't the intention. So little plates are bonded in across the internal arcs to stop light coming out.
At the same time the entire bottom is covered in Tin foil to also stop light bleeding out of the bottom edges.
The micro USB board and buck convertor need to go out of the case given the buck does throw off some heat. So I designed a little electronics box to house them.
From the back you can now see the mounted electronics box, tin foil on bottom all installed.
Finally last steps of installing the acrylic case top and giving it a clean down.
The display case will be moved later in time due to other circumstances. But for now it lives at the back of my desk next to the USB hub so I can always see it.
Of course a photo of the final display with lights on. The intention was always for a subtle display and not something beaming bright light out. All USB powered, perfect!
Lego Speed Series custom acrylic case display with lights
