LCARS lighted display

[KnightAsylum]

I have been on a bit of a Star Trek kick lately (building a PL 1/350 Enterprise, a PADD, and reading a Trek book) and was thinking that a backlit LCARS display should be a fairly easy and cheap project. I am not sure how or where to go about getting the panel printed up, but the whole thing can't be that complicated. A few built wood panels with some lights behind them and it seems like a cool room prop that would not be fairly easy to make.
What would be really cool would be the ship diagram that is usually on one of the bridge displays (or in the engine room on Enterprise D, I think) but that oversize display would be harder to get printed I suppose.
Anyone done something like this, or seen it done?
With the gazillion Trek fans it has to have been done many times by others more talented and smarter then I. So I hope to steal ideas from them

 

[KnightAsylum]

73 views and no comments or suggestions...Well I suppose I will just figure it out for myself.

 

[RKW]

Maybe you two should talk. I've provided a link to another RPF thread below:-

Damn Trekies

 

[Vaderman]

Yeah, these have been done to death. Lots of real ones used to float around charity auctions and such.
Smoked Plexiglass, print out your graphic on acetate, glue to the back and back light it.

 

[KnightAsylum]

Thanks for pointing out that thread, not sure how I missed it.
They may have been "done to death", but since I don't own one, and want one, I still need to make it.
I have seen prinout floating around ebay but they are always on the small side and seem a bit over priced.
Anyway...I will just watch the other thread and let this one die.

 

[Vaderman]

Please don't let my comment put you off, I only meant that there are many people who have done it and could probably offer suggestions and insight. Maybe people have graphics as well, there was someone doing a van renovation and they asked for a graphic for a back lit panel in side and another member here crafted up a nice one pretty quick.

It isn't difficult to do. The ST:TNG tech manual and other books had good art to use as a base.

Good luck with it.

 

[GeneralMayhem]

Talk to Sulla. He's our resident expert on the subject.

 

[Eric Ardros]

As Vaderman suggested, get yourself some smoked plexiglass (approximately one-quarter inch thick, I believe), print out your graphic on acetate (which can be done at either a sign shop or professional printing shop; it's not cheap, though), glue to the back and back light it.

As for the differently coloured control areas/buttons on the LCARS panel/MSDs, the Prop Dept. used coloured stage light gels -- thin acetate sheets, thinner than what was used for the panel graphics themselves -- and placed them in behind the different buttons. Hope that helps, dude.

I like your idea of doing up one of the MSDs as a display piece, however for myself I'd always wanted to do up a 1:1 reproduction of Data's OPS station. That'd be way-kewl, imho... B)

 

[Sulla]

Man am I coming in late to this... I am waiting on my LCARS to be printed out and shipped to me, but I am going to make a blogg tutorial as I build my back lit LCARS display. I'll post a link to it when I get around to starting it.

All the help offered here so far sounds like good help.

 

[starfighter66]

display

depending on if you are using a print you already have or are creating one, check this site www.stardock.com you could use a computer screen as your LCARS display and with the above program use it as an actual computer interface

 

[Anima]

Just be sure that whatever panel you end up building, enable it to shoot sparks and die when bumped.

 

[starfighter66]

I found something that would be fantastic for the backlight display, I was at IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stor...Id=10103&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=72565http://www.ikea.com) and they had these metal/glass frame shelfs with a flouresent light in them.