Marquee for Pimoroni Picade

https://youtu.be/t9LwVl0aLlY

I was looking for a marquee for my Pimoroni Picade, and found the one from Staal3D. It didn't have the exact dimensions of the acrylic that comes with the kit, so I remodeled it using measurements off mine.

I also created three LED back light plates to mount LED strips and and other gear used for back lighting. There is a solid back plate and two with honeycombs for cable management and zip ties. The bevel in the back plate can be glued into the marquee surround that has the corresponding divot using super glue. There is also a divot free version if you will not be using a backlight plate.

The version I made was the marquee outer frame with divot and the first honeycomb LED back plate. I used an Adafruit Metro Mini 328 and some NeoPixel Black 60 LED 1m strip cut to 11 pixels. I used the Arduino IDE and Adafruit library to code animations. I zip tied everything to the back plate, and used a 1 foot USB cable connected to the Raspberry Pi USB. I had an extra CanaKit power siwtch that I added so I could turn the marquee off without unplugging the USB cable.

I also included the Arduino sketch I am using. It's slightly modified from the video example to include more animations.

NeoPixel Strip: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1461?length=1
Metro Mini: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2590
USB cable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019PZPYK6

Notes:

I printed everything except the text in Galaxy Black PLA. The text was printed in glow in the dark PLA. I liked the milky translucency and the faint light retention.

If you print the text face down on a textured sheet like I did, you should add supports.

For infill on the translucent glow PLA, I chose the Octagram Spiral at 50% in Prusaslicer. It creates a pretty cool pattern since you will be able to see it with a back light.

Post-Printing:

The text is a tight fit in the text plates. A trick that worked for me is to take a tongue depressor or popsicle stick and cut one end flat. Use that to press down on the plate around the edges of the letters. You can use a hammer or mallet to tap the stick.

The text is designed to protrude slightly and the backing of the text flush to the back of the text plate. You could also put the text plate face down and tap the text until it’s flush with the front if you’d like.