I’ve previously posted about my work on scanning a bridge cable and designing an LED attachment clip for the Bay Lights project. Well, last week we put up a test strand of LEDs, using Makerbotted clips! The idea is to test the clips for strength and resistance to weathering, before moving ahead with the full scale installation!

LED lights being installed

It’s been really interesting designing this, using the Makerbot has allowed multiple iterations of the design really quickly. As you can see in the following picture, the clip protects the main LED data cable from stress, and anchors the LED nodes firmly on the cable.

Close-up of a clip in use

By using silver plastic, the clips are basically invisible once installed.

The test strand of LEDs, all in place

Last week I posted on the process of scanning one of the cables of the Bay Bridge, in preparation for designing an LED attachment strategy for the Bay Lights project. Here’s a bit more info on what we came up with.

Bay Bridge LED attachment clip test

The brief is to attach strings of high-intensity Philips outdoor LEDs to the vertical suspension cables of the bridge. Initially, the thought was to just zip tie them into place, but Philips engineers pointed out that this would damage the data and power cables. Ideally we would also come up with a solution that simplifies the work of the installation crews, by allowing for easy positioning and assembly.

A first step was to design a clip that would allow attaching pre-existing rails to the cables, and have the LEDs latch into the rail. However, this would have been expensive and unsightly. I had the idea to just use the clips to go directly onto the suspension cable. I was also able to add side channels for the extension cables that go to other segments of the LED cable. (The extension cable is the thick black one on the side). The clip is designed to clip securely to the data cable, and to guide the zip tie into the right position.

The plan is to test a strand of LEDs on the bridge this week, using 55 clips printed on a Makerbot (!). If all goes well, then we need another 25,000 of the things…

Here’s a video that describes the process in a bit more detail:

I’ve  been working on a strategy for physically attaching the lights for the Bay Lights Project in San Francisco, and we needed a section of the bridge suspension cable to test things. Chopping out a section from the bridge is naturally out of the question, but fortunately we have some really cool tools at our disposal.

Our team went on to the bridge, and photographed the cable from all sides. Using 123D Catch, I made a 3D model, and then printed out a section. Presto, we’re all set, with an accurate model of a section of cable!

The intrepid Bay Lights lighting team on-site

This short video shows how easy it was to generate the 3D model and print it. The scan needed only minor automatic repairs using Netfabb Studio Basic, and printed really easily.

I’ll be posting more details of the lighting solution as it develops. Very excited that having a MakerBot made it possible to set up a realistic prototyping setup for this project in a way that would have been almost inconceivable just a few years ago.