New twist on an LED on indicator

[intlplby]

here's another one of my threads which although are not necessarily technical they usually have a new design idea for prettying up your home made amps


the idea is as follows:

next time you build an amp instead of putting an LED in the face of the amp do the following.

1) cut out a piece of lexan or plexiglass in the shape of your front face plate.

2) sand down and smooth the edges of your plexiglass with some fine grit sandpaper to until it is smooth to the touch, but don't use such fine grit that it is polished - you want the edge to be a cloudy color - translucent not transparent.

3) drill all holes for face plate items to pass through the plexiglass. now drill an additional hole in the center of your lexan plate that is the same diameter as one super bright LED (this may work with a normal brightness led for smaller amps.

4) mount the lexan plate between the amp chassis and main face plate. Glue the led into the hole in the lexan.

The led should make the cloudy edges of the lexan glow all the way around fairly evenly.

when I make a ppa I'll do this and post step by step instructions with photos.

still ordering parts right now

 

[erix]

One of the percs of my day job is prototyping and experimenting with high performance LED's. Seems I'm the only one in the plant that knows which end of the soldering iron to hold.

What you are descrbing will make the edge glow but for max punch you should use a 1W or 3W Luxeon Side-Emitting LED. These have a lens on top of the die which sends the light from the LED out in a 360 degree circle, perpendicular to the centerline of the LED. One 1W Luxeon can illuminate the edges of a 12" x 18" x 1/2" thick acrylic exit sign very nicely.

Frosted edges will glow. To shoot light out past the edge you'll want to use acrylic instead of lexan 'cause you can polish the edges with the flame of a plumbers torch - CAREFULLY!

Actually I'd use acrylic instead of lexan anyway as it is available in thicker sheets.

Luxeon emitters require a constant current power source (350mA for the 1W and 1000mA for the 3W) which you can usually find on eBay. You could also make your own with a LM317.

For an extra special look, take a 3/8" acrylic face plate and get your markings engraved on the backside at a trophy shop. Hide the LED behind your volume knob or a marker plate and all the markings ("Volume", tick marks, etc..) will glow very nicely.

Obligatory Links:
1W Luxeon Star
3W Luxeon Star

ok,
erix

 

[intlplby]

the more you know....

thanks a bunch... that's some good info to know....


btw, those are some badass led configurations.... the line could be made into a serious overkill VU for different frequency ranges.....


it would be kind of cool to maybe make a knob that was 2 parts of aluminum with the acrylic and led between it so the knob glowed

only problem is how to get power to the led in the knob.