First full week of the school year and I managed to get a fair bit done and went through some moments of crisis. I decided to do a test last week on Friday by leaving my box running while we were at lunch. But then I come back to see that the LED has come off the thermal tape and has now burnt out. I had to cut the LED off the wires and then solder on a whole new LED to replace it. I was recommended the idea to screw my LED onto the heatsink and use thermal paste instead. After drilling some holes into heatsink and screwing my LED on my crisis had been dealt with.
I also noticed something else about my box after the test however and it was that the acrylic had started to fog up. I became paranoid and was about to drill some new vent holes into the bottom of my box for the heatsink to work better. And I was going to add some support stands underneath so there would actually be airflow. I modeled up the stands but then I decided to abandon the plan because I realized the box had slots all along the walls for it to vent out. And also the acrylic fogged up because the LED came off the thermal tape which was conducting the heat but also holding it down. So since it came off it was right under the acrylic causing it to get more of the direct heat and fog up. Good news however is that the dome has arrived. It was a bit of a loose fit so I recut the acrylic to be a more snug fit and now the lantern is complete.
I did have to recut the center paper ring because I accidentally ripped and stained the first couple ones I made. It took me multiple cuts to properly fit it back in but eventually I got it. Smaller things I did on the side was helping out Aaron tape the sides of our router in the machine shop. A large machine that cuts wood. The tape is there to help create a vacuum seal for the router to actually hold down the wood it is cutting. All in all this week had several scares and hiccups but everything worked out.
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