Sophisticated Shadows, TSCK

This one offered no particular challenges, other than coming up with a design that allowed easy maintenance and installation. The typical table was somewhat challenging to work around, when the need for the light box at the edge of the table was established.

Clearance

Since the light needed to not light up the table edge, but the table needed to be as close to the typical design as possible, i needed to be slightly clever with how the lights and light case interacted with each other.
Below we can see a small cleat that allows the light cover to be slid backward until the clear acrylic screen is pinched between the sheetmetal cover and the light shield tubes. Then the screws in the rear side of the case can be tightened to lock the position in place. The rear screw pass through slots, which here looks like the oversized washer would fall into, but the slow is narrow and wide. I couldn’t duplicated the slotted fastener system at the front, since the table hardware was in the way, and i didn’t want to be cruel to the people fabricating this exhibit.

Electronics

Somewhere along the line, i developed a pretty reasonable parametric 3d model for the typical DIN electrical assemblies we make at the Exploratorium. I even included some instructions as an annotation in the 3d model on how to use and adjust the parametric model. All hardware is represented, so a complete BOM can be exported. Pictures below is the instance for Sophisticated Shadows. The “master” assembly has a more complete set of components to start with, and you simple delete the things you don’t need.