DIY Extended RGB Mousepad

cdominic3 · November 15, 2017

I've always wondered why there isn't an official market for peripheral makers for an "Extended RGB Mousepad", so I just made one instead.

The process was surprisingly easy.

You're only going to need a few things:

1. The acrylic base

2. RGB strips

3. Reflective paper

4. Tape

5. Scissors

6. Mousepad

You may also need a dremel, acrylic cutter, or a laser cutter if you have one.

First step is acquire the acrylic cut to the dimensions of your mousepad. For me, my mousepad was 80cm x 30cm (31.5" x 11.8"). I bought my acrylic at Tap Plastics, they're a specialty store in California that sells and cuts plastic to your wants/needs, so it was easy for me to do the second part.

Next is to cut an L-shape channel across the acrylic, this is where we're going to route the RGB strip. As I've said before, I had mine cut when I bought it, you can use a dremel, an acrylic cutter or, if you have one, a laser cutter. My channel spans 70cm (27.5") across the panel and 1cm (0.4") wide, in hindsight, this should have been 1.5cm (0.6") to account for the RGB controller, which is a few millimeter wider than the strip itself.

Next is to tape the bottom side of the channel. This is where the RGB strip is going to stick and will stop it from falling off of the acrylic base.

Once we have the channel all taped up, we then proceed to place the RGB strip and controller on the channel itself.

We then cut 1" wide strips of the reflective paper and place them on top of the RGB strip. This is to have the light reflect back on itself and refract through the acrylic. We then tape the reflective paper in place.