Displaying of Lithophanes.....

Post by **RoutnAbout** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 3:25 pm

I've made a few lithophanes over the past year. And am always struggling with how the end user could present their lithophane. I welcome any ideas and tricks that anyone has used, or ideas on presenting and displaying a lithophane that needs to be backlit. I've made a few lightboxes, where the back of the lightbox can be taken apart ( screwed on to the frame, or the back slides up or to the side ) allowing access to the lithophane. My biggest problem is getting hotspots in the lithophane ( not hot to the touch, but brighter spots when viewing ) I've thought about putting a diffuser inbetween the lights and image. But haven't attempted this yet.

I was picking up some solid surface drops at a local ( 40 mile away ) cabinet shop and noticed that they had a large Lithophane in their main office. Everyone that I asked didn't know how the lighting inside their box was done. But the box it self was beautiful. They made their box out of the solid surface material. The lithophane and display was appox. 24in tall by 60in wide. It was of all their employees out front of their main office.

Any Ideas would be helpful.
On another note, I've been looking for those nightlight fixtures. I'd like to attempt to put a few small lithophanes on. I haven't been able to find just the fixture where i can purchase in small quantities ( 10 -20- 100 )

Don

Post by **Phil** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:40 pm

RoutnAbout,

Bill Palumbo, from the Shopbot forum, has worked with Lithopanes. Post a question on that web site, I'm sure you'll get a good response.

Post by **Wemme** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:37 pm

What sort of lighting were you using?

Post by **RoutnAbout** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:28 pm

On the larger lithophanes i was using 24" fluorescents, spaced about 8 inches apart.

The Lightbox was about 20" height by 30" width and 5 inches deep. I placed the lights horizontal. Spaced about 8" apart.

Don

rookie432 · Post by **rookie432** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:47 pm

I used to etch/sandblast mirrors. Etch the silvering off the backside of the mirror and light from behind so that the etching glowed. Pretty neat effect. We did a larger piece in an office building that needed even light distribution so what we did was build a shadow box frame and installed a couple od small flourescents on each side ( make sure the light isn't too close to the image. Then we ligned the boxframe with refelective material ( aluminim foils are fine with flourescent because no heat) for that matter you can line the box with a reflective white or colored vinyl for effect. This will help with even light distribution. Basically you are just filling a box with light that reflects through the image.
For low profile flourescent lights try Outwater Plastics.

Hope this helps.

Bill

Post by **Mike Kelly** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:01 am

This is a lithophane that Bill Palumbo did for me a few years ago. I added the frame and backlight (small florescents) and it turned out very visable without hotspots.

Post by **Mike Kelly** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 3:02 am

Here is the lithophane with the backlight on.

Post by **CRFultz** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 9:40 am

Don,
I work on LCD moniters every so often...if you find one thats not working take it apart and look at the fresnel lens and the diffuser panels....the lighting is evenly distributed with the use of these. I'm sure that a litho could be backlit with the same principal setup. I haven't tried this yet but it's on my to do list.....I have a few of these under my electronics bench that I'm saving just for this reason. If you take one apart...wear clean white cotton gloves...fingerprints cannot be cleaned very easily from the componets.

Chuck