Plexiglas cover magnetically attached

Plexiglass cover magnetically attached for mounting LED lighting to the ceiling.

Plexiglass – cover for LED living room lighting

I wanted to take advantage of LED lighting in our living room and install LED strips along a suspended ceiling structure. Unfortunately, there aren't many solutions available on the market yet. So I planned and implemented it myself. Here's our living room shown in a CAD drawing (because it's difficult to take a photo...), viewed diagonally from below: The surrounding lighting strip can be seen in the ceiling structure (white area). This is 17.5 m long in total.

Schematic illustration of the lighting strip.

In the I incorporated an aluminum profile into the plasterboard substructure. The LED strips will later be glued into this aluminum rail. For the cover, I used 6 mm frosted Plexiglas strips, which are attached to the plasterboard substructure using a block magnet and a disc magnet in the Plexiglas.
Plexiglas has a considerable thermal expansion (approx. 1.8 mm/m at 25°C). With this magnet combination, the Plexiglas can expand without losing its magnetic adhesion. The magnets are arranged at a distance of approximately 25 cm on both sides and are glued to the substructure with epoxy glue and to the Plexiglas with superglue. Thus, this project uses approximately 150 disc magnets and 150 block magnets. I created the necessary recesses in the plasterboard with a Dremel.

Magnets used:

• Disc magnet Ø 5.0 x 3.0 mm N40 nickel - holds 900 g
• Block magnet 10.0 x 6.0 x 2.0 mm N52 nickel - holds 1.25 kg
• Epoxy two-component adhesive 24 ml transparent twin syringe
• Magnetic super adhesive in bottle with dispensing needle - 20 gr.

Given the stated holding force of the magnets, the selection seems oversized, however, practical tests have shown that this is not the case in my project. Not all magnets are perfectly aligned (not under laboratory conditions...), the force is applied not only vertically but also from the side, the weight of the plexiglass strip has to be supported and, what's more, the plexiglass shouldn't fall off when vacuuming.