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One word for you, Plastics!

While that word set the tone for Benjamin's future choices, today they are very pervasive. Yet, they can be a bit pricey when you consider what goes into them.

I'm looking at constructing a compact navigation light for a kayak and there are lots of materials available from the low cost Asian market. I found a W5W format LED lamp that is really just a circuit board costing under a buck. A rechargeable battery is $9. $5 for a water tight case. This all seems pretty reasonable. But I'm going to need some bits of plastic to form a light pipe/lens and to give the LEDs color. That is looking like around $5 to $20 per color and I need three! Just for a bit of plastic a quarter inch thick and about the size of a file card! This all seems to be coming from the US, no Chinese plastic supplies on ebay. Maybe I should try Aliexpress.

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Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998
Reply to
rickman
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Try a local plastics distributor, they may have old stock and scraps for the walk in crowd.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

But I'm going to need some bits of plastic to form

Buy Led's of the colors that you want. No need to have a blue led excite a phosphor to generate white light so you can filter it to provide the color you want.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

und

a phosphor to generate white light so you can filter it to provide the co lor you want.

Well quite. I assumed there must be a reason he decided agaisnt that, such as the module being sealed & waterproofed.

A much cheaper option might be sweet wrapper material. If you can put the r ight size piece of it under the outer clear plastic, Robert could be your r elative. I used that approach long ago, it worked fine over a few years. Th e plastic lens was patterned so the plastic film wasn't visible.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

I was looking at the plethora of white LEDs modules available on eBay, etc. Then I discovered RGB modules and the color filters have gone away. In fact there is one LED in particular that has a driver built in, the WS2812B. I don't know how bright it is compared to what I need as I'm not overly familiar with mcd units. I think 5000 to 10,000 mcd will do the job.

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms, 
on the centerline of totality since 1998
Reply to
rickman

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