1. Home
  2. General Electronics
  3. Making LED light pipes...

Making LED light pipes...

I wanted to build something akin to mini neon sign like those in Las Vegas or the Time Square in NYC but on small scall. conventional neon are too large and too inefficient. CCFL could work but inverter that comes with CCFL tended to be cheap and can blow out easy from switching a lot. Plus CCFL are rarely available in any form other than straight.

LED is low power, cheap, and won't burn out from switching frequently. But LED bar I've seen seemed to be made of multiple LED in a line and I don't want the spotlight effect. So that leaves light pipes with LED at each end.

Can any of you suggest a simple materials that I can use, available at local places, and easily bends to form shapes? Clear inside, frosted coating would probably mimic mini-neon tube the best. I've thought about using hot glue to make light pipes but they may not be clear enough to allow light to travel the full length.

TIA for any advice or suggestions.

Reply to
Impmon
Loading thread data ...

How about making a mold for the desired shape(s) and then casting the part with transparent resin? The frosted finish could be applied with a glass etching set (kind of like a mini sand blaster).

resin

formatting link
etcher
formatting link

Not practical for wall-sized installations but if you're doing dioramas or HO-scale projects, it might work.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Wish I could remember the name of the Company now. It was about 20 yrs back. They were based in England in Devon or Cornwall IIRC and did all sorts of optic fibres including low cost plastic ones.

The reason I was interested was that Siemens as was (Infineon ? now) had brought out a range of leds with a centre hole to take a light pipe, so you could pipe the light anywhere without having to locate the led near to the control surface. It worked fine but for other reasons was not adopted into a new design.

I can almost see the front cover of the catalogue, but damned if I can recall their name. A search restricted to that area of Britain might help. It was cheap fibre too.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

I've tried to get this kind of effect using (very) heavy fishing line or clear weed-trimmer line but not had much luck. :( Roughing up the surface of unjacketed plastic optical fiber might work.

Have you thought of electroluminescent wire (EL wire)? It's flexible, looks a bit like neon, doesn't mind being switched on and off, not too expensive. Take a look at sellers like coolneon or coolight (dot com) to get small lengths of the stuff and the associated inverters.

(It will break if you flex it a lot, or kink it, but it's not super fragile.)

--
   Wim Lewis , Seattle, WA, USA. PGP keyID 27F772C1
  "We learn from history that we do not learn from history." -Hegel
Reply to
Wim Lewis

EL ropes could work but I dunno about the inverter. Say I have 6 that I want to "animate" one at a time. Can I get away using single inverter and a high voltage transistor on each EL ropes to toggle one EL on? Depending on how transistor behaves, there's a chance that 2 EL ropes would be on at once for a millisecond, or none (no load) and if EL inverter is built the same as CCFL inverter, they will throw tantrum from spikes/surges and release the magic smokes.

I've melted an inverter from trying to light up a 320mmx3 CCFL off one that originally came with a 6" CCFL. The inverter case was mallable for a few minutes after the smoke was let out. Having multiple EL on at once even for a brief time could cause the same problem.

Reply to
Impmon 

--
If the maximum number of EL ropes you'll have on at once is two, then
the easiest thing to do would be to get an inverter rated for twice the
current of a single rope.

If you're worried about transients, then a suitable TVS across the
output of the inverter should work to keep the magic smoke from
escaping.

JF
Reply to
John Fields

gile.)

Why not plexiglass rods. They can be heated slightly and then bent to shape, and the led's can be placed anywhere convenient

Reply to
hrhofmann

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.