Wow, great video, Becky! My favourite diffusion material is ... that foam diffusion material, harvested from dead LCD screens! Theres a white layer the size of the panel roughly 1/4" thick you can easily remove from the panel assembly on dead LCD monitors. You can find tons of dead monitors at your local computer recyclers, company IT department, or at the curb on garbage day -- you can harvest that diffusion foam and recycle the rest! It spreads the light evenly just as the monitor required, and works just as great for any similar hobby project.
I've tried Stencil / Tracing paper, if you place it a few centimetres away from the LED's it completely diffuses the light and lets most of it through. The best thing about Tracing paper is you can buy it in different grain thicknesses for tuneability. Best to build it around a frame for best effect.
The mention of using the fiberfill of plushies for diffusion is similar to a technique a friend of mine does. She embeds LEDs into needle felting objects. The white/natural wool used to make the bulk of the felted objects not only is an inexpensive way to make up the bulk of the volume, but diffuses light nicely. It does take some experimentation with density to get the desired effect.
Those semi transparent fluid containers like milk jugs (HDPE) are excellent. Also the stuff melts nicely, you can easily just cut a piece from the side of a canister, put it on top of some bulb-like object, stick that thing into an oven on about 160C for a while and you have a nice diffusor. You can use crumpled aluminium foil on the bottom as reflector.
Holy wow. I came here just for the diffusion ideas but the montage of your past projects convinced me to subscribe and start watching all your old videos too! :p
So many wonderful ideas! One I came across (I didn't work this out myself, I read it and tried it) are those thin foam sheets which are used for wrapping things you want to survive in the post. It works well too!
In my first project over this weekend (Gemma + NeoPixel Ring + PulseSensor), I've found that the white opaque screw caps for plastic jars work great as a diffuser for the ring. Over it I've fixed a white material orchid, which serves further to diffuse and act as a neat visual. The cap also works as a really handy container for people like me who don't have access to 3D printers.
It's my first project, so my documentation has been pretty awful -- despite watching your video on the topic. I'm probably going to be doing the finishing touches tonight and put something on my Instagram -- I might Tweet it @ you later if you'd be interested?
I've gotten a lot of millage out of white styrofoam craft balls and cubes usually used in flower arranging. Stick the LED to one side and it magically makes the entire ball surface glow (similar to the ping pong ball shown).
This video was actually really interesting considering I was only looking as I have an RGB LED strip interior light in my car that I want to blend together to give a more uniform colour. I've fine tuned it to be white light but there's still certain areas that are illuminated as more a pink and other areas in that car that look green. The light in the car does look white it's just not all mixed together perfectly. I switched to a strip light as the OEM filament light was extremely dull, used 5x as much power and did not provide light in the rear seats or the boot.
Love it I have a Question though - I accidentally sent a PCB for production where instead of a single RGB led, I have 2 SMD leds - red and green, spaced about 2mm apart. I've been trying all kinds of diffusers to make it look yellow when both are on but it just looks like red and green.. any idea what could help?
Hmm, that's a toughie! Can you put something directly in front of them that reflects the light backwards? Backlighting might be a way to get the rays of light to mix. Also perhaps when you assemble the boards you can tilt and solder the tiny LEDs towards one another a tiny bit. Did you try a ping pong ball? Best of luck!
Hi Becky thanks for the video very interesting my Daughter has a large stainless steel glass lamp it is about a foot tall and 6" x 6" across and is designed to take a church Candle but I want to make it into a garden led lamp with a small solar panel on top I have the electronics and solar panel but don't know how to replace the candle with something that looks the part and gives a good light my solar panel is 5v 20ma charge and I can use a phone battery with lots of leds any ideas, please
I want to have LED strips on my wall but I dont like the pixely look they give, I thought of using translucent white silicone pipes but those aren't available easily in my area. Do you have any suggestions?
Hey, miss watching your videos ( UA-cam hasn’t been placing them on my new video feed) in reference to LED’s can a Gemma give an led halo dimming function ? Trying to have these led halos I purchased pulse from low light to max light at a random pattern but not sure what the best option is.
Yep, Gemma can fade regular or addressable LEDs. You might try my free beginner Arduino class on Instructables to get started with the coding you'll need
Clear acrylic doesn't diffuse (unless you are talking about edge-lighting it, in which case the effect is called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection), it'll just show off all the minor scratches etc. For diffusion with acrylic, use frosted/milky opacities or buff up your clear sheet with fine sandpaper.
hello, thanks for this awesome vid. was wondering where can i get those scrolling led display that you use for the bag around 1:21 mark? i love doing evening ride on my electric unicycle and been wanting to get something very similar. thanks and be safe
What about a led matrix driven off a Raspberry Pi 3 MKIII running RISC OS and programming the matrix using the ARM assembler from inside BBC BASIC if you have four pin leds but you should be able to make flexible led matrices which you can scroll designs or your name across, don't use a laser cutter to cut vinyl or you might wind up inhaling the Endocrine Disrupter fumes best to be safe rather than sorry.
Thank you for the video. neat to see the way light diffuses differently in different cases. That's the first time I've seen the shadow box technique 0:54, very simple, but quite effective zone technique Your strip example of different materials is quite the teaching tool 4:30-5:50. The Crinoline tubing technique is pretty awesome as well 3:58 from a different video this guy has a couple other techniques you might want to look into ua-cam.com/video/mg1qygPJXOY/v-deo.html He uses a sanding technique, and foams, and shows that distance from the light source makes a difference as well (distance, material, and different light strips) you're 3d printed material, I'm interested in the material you used, but also what are the typical wall thicknesses you'd use for good diffuse, and how thick the material is when the light almost stops diffusing between the two videos, yours was good at showing on the strip the different materials and thicknesses. There's another factor you might want to show on your sample strip, which is the distance of the opaque screen from the led light source a 2 dimensional linear led strip test you could try with students if you did a simple calculation, you could do a two factor graph (different opaque material or same material with a different thickness ) * (Distance the opaque material is from the surface from the led) = Diffuse Value Scale Factor you could then pick different materials (glue, paper, epoxy, .... ) and cause a similar diffuse factor by putting the test specimens at different distance from the light. now if you throw a 3d printed object at it that changes the ball game, but you could still show some simple properties to see what looks best for a diffuse scale factor take a fairly simple geometric shape like a longish cylinder printed with your magic 3d printed material. 3 dimensional cylinder diffuse led strip test First test, Cylinder - Vary the Diameter (or radius) - you could vary diameter of the cylinder. keeping wall thickness and length of tube constant (pencil cylinder to can shape cylinder) Second test, Cylinder - Vary the Height - you could try same diameter of cylinde, keeping wall thickness constant, but varying length of the tube (short to long cylinder) Third test, Cylinder - Vary the Thickness of the material - you could try the above tests but varying the thickness of the 3d printed wall material of the tube (thickness of the material) [stack these test cylinders side by each on a led test strip, in a matrix formation] The cylinder diffuse test, would be a lot of work, but it would show off a lot of the diffuse properties on the 3d printed material, in a 3d shape , more complex than the linear factors of the 2d test. This would give students and designers a somewhat decent idea of what to expect from a 3d printed object with the special 3d printing light diffuse material (waste less material in future trial and error off of predictive guessing technique) Anywho, awesome video, and thank you for sharing! If you have any other diffusing techniques to share, please post them :) and if you or anyone else by chance happen to try the 2-d or 3-d diffuse test above , please share the results
Thank you for the video. neat to see the way light diffuses differently in different cases. That's the first time I've seen the shadow box technique 0:54, very simple, but quite effective zone technique Your strip example of different materials is quite the teaching tool 4:30-5:50. The Crinoline tubing technique is pretty awesome as well 3:58 from a different video this guy has a couple other techniques you might want to look into ua-cam.com/video/mg1qygPJXOY/v-deo.html He uses a sanding technique, and foams, and shows that distance from the light source makes a difference as well (distance, material, and different light strips) you're 3d printed material, I'm interested in the material you used, but also what are the typical wall thicknesses you'd use for good diffuse, and how thick the material is when the light almost stops diffusing between the two videos, yours was good at showing on the strip the different materials and thicknesses. There's another factor you might want to show on your sample strip, which is the distance of the opaque screen from the led light source a 2 dimensional linear led strip test you could try with students if you did a simple calculation, you could do a two factor graph (different opaque material or same material with a different thickness ) * (Distance the opaque material is from the surface from the led) = Diffuse Value Scale Factor you could then pick different materials (glue, paper, epoxy, .... ) and cause a similar diffuse factor by putting the test specimens at different distance from the light. now if you throw a 3d printed object at it that changes the ball game, but you could still show some simple properties to see what looks best for a diffuse scale factor take a fairly simple geometric shape like a longish cylinder printed with your magic 3d printed material. 3 dimensional cylinder diffuse led strip test First test, Cylinder - Vary the Diameter (or radius) - you could vary diameter of the cylinder. keeping wall thickness and length of tube constant (pencil cylinder to can shape cylinder) Second test, Cylinder - Vary the Height - you could try same diameter of cylinde, keeping wall thickness constant, but varying length of the tube (short to long cylinder) Third test, Cylinder - Vary the Thickness of the material - you could try the above tests but varying the thickness of the 3d printed wall material of the tube (thickness of the material) [stack these test cylinders side by each on a led test strip, in a matrix formation] The cylinder diffuse test, would be a lot of work, but it would show off a lot of the diffuse properties on the 3d printed material, in a 3d shape , more complex than the linear factors of the 2d test. This would give students and designers a somewhat decent idea of what to expect from a 3d printed object with the special 3d printing light diffuse material (waste less material in future trial and error off of predictive guessing technique) Anywho, awesome video, and thank you for sharing! If you have any other diffusing techniques to share, please post them :) and if you or anyone else by chance happen to try the 2-d or 3-d diffuse test above , please share the results
Show me how you diffuse your LEDs! Tag me on Instagram: instagram.com/bekathwia/
I am planning to buy some acrylic panels. I need them for my DIY nanoleaf project.
JUST FOUND THIS CHANNEL AND THANK YOU i LOVE led pEOPLE
Wow, great video, Becky! My favourite diffusion material is ... that foam diffusion material, harvested from dead LCD screens! Theres a white layer the size of the panel roughly 1/4" thick you can easily remove from the panel assembly on dead LCD monitors. You can find tons of dead monitors at your local computer recyclers, company IT department, or at the curb on garbage day -- you can harvest that diffusion foam and recycle the rest! It spreads the light evenly just as the monitor required, and works just as great for any similar hobby project.
Awesome tip, thank you!
How do you cut it, ain't it like plastic that shatters
I've tried Stencil / Tracing paper, if you place it a few centimetres away from the LED's it completely diffuses the light and lets most of it through. The best thing about Tracing paper is you can buy it in different grain thicknesses for tuneability. Best to build it around a frame for best effect.
The mention of using the fiberfill of plushies for diffusion is similar to a technique a friend of mine does. She embeds LEDs into needle felting objects. The white/natural wool used to make the bulk of the felted objects not only is an inexpensive way to make up the bulk of the volume, but diffuses light nicely. It does take some experimentation with density to get the desired effect.
Great stuff Becky. These are some truly great ideas! I especially appreciate the diffusion chart you have.
Such great ideas
So good. So many people are wanting to dabble in led lit projects, and this is such a good resource. Nice work!
Really like the idea of creating a board to demo different effects to students. Thanks for this great tip and all of your wonderful ideas!
my god this video is beautifully well-organized
GREAT VIDEO! So much creativity and ingenuity! You are the LED guru Becky!
Thank you Seon!!
I really enjoy your videos
ty so much exactly what I was looking for..
Same! (It's still relevant =D)
Great video! I can't believe how well the blob of hot glue worked!
Thanks!
Just what I was looking for! Excellent information, thanks Becky!
You're welcome!
ohh love this
your projects are really cool, the book bag one is really creative and neat
Thank you!
Great instructable. The wifi weather display is awesome.
Thank you so much!
Those semi transparent fluid containers like milk jugs (HDPE) are excellent. Also the stuff melts nicely, you can easily just cut a piece from the side of a canister, put it on top of some bulb-like object, stick that thing into an oven on about 160C for a while and you have a nice diffusor. You can use crumpled aluminium foil on the bottom as reflector.
Nice tip, thank you! If you readers take kke's advice, be sure to open a window/get proper ventilation whenever heating up any kind of plastic.
Holy wow. I came here just for the diffusion ideas but the montage of your past projects convinced me to subscribe and start watching all your old videos too! :p
Awesome, thank you!
Awesome! Ping pong balls are my fave.
So many wonderful ideas! One I came across (I didn't work this out myself, I read it and tried it) are those thin foam sheets which are used for wrapping things you want to survive in the post. It works well too!
Hi, can I use hot glue to spread and cover all over the led strip to diffuse the light? Does hot glue do any damage to the led strip's chips?
In my first project over this weekend (Gemma + NeoPixel Ring + PulseSensor), I've found that the white opaque screw caps for plastic jars work great as a diffuser for the ring. Over it I've fixed a white material orchid, which serves further to diffuse and act as a neat visual. The cap also works as a really handy container for people like me who don't have access to 3D printers.
Awesome suggestion, thank you! Anywhere we can see your creation online? Sounds rad.
It's my first project, so my documentation has been pretty awful -- despite watching your video on the topic. I'm probably going to be doing the finishing touches tonight and put something on my Instagram -- I might Tweet it @ you later if you'd be interested?
Yeah, I'd love to see it!
Thank u
I've gotten a lot of millage out of white styrofoam craft balls and cubes usually used in flower arranging. Stick the LED to one side and it magically makes the entire ball surface glow (similar to the ping pong ball shown).
Great tip, thank you!
Thank you.... Loved your ideas 😍
This video was actually really interesting considering I was only looking as I have an RGB LED strip interior light in my car that I want to blend together to give a more uniform colour. I've fine tuned it to be white light but there's still certain areas that are illuminated as more a pink and other areas in that car that look green. The light in the car does look white it's just not all mixed together perfectly. I switched to a strip light as the OEM filament light was extremely dull, used 5x as much power and did not provide light in the rear seats or the boot.
Becky you rule. New subscriber. Just what I was looking for.
Some awesome ideas here, thanks!
Thank you thank you! Great content!!
Your videos are super cool 👍👍👍
For boxes and such, try parchment paper that's used for baking.
Ooh I bet it would look warm and inviting! Thanks for the tip.
I love the glue idea!
Trying to think of ways to reduce led glare in spots that itll face my TV or my eyes and i think the glue might work
Love it
I have a Question though - I accidentally sent a PCB for production where instead of a single RGB led, I have 2 SMD leds - red and green, spaced about 2mm apart. I've been trying all kinds of diffusers to make it look yellow when both are on but it just looks like red and green.. any idea what could help?
Hmm, that's a toughie! Can you put something directly in front of them that reflects the light backwards? Backlighting might be a way to get the rays of light to mix. Also perhaps when you assemble the boards you can tilt and solder the tiny LEDs towards one another a tiny bit. Did you try a ping pong ball? Best of luck!
OMG how have I not seen this before?? THANK YOU this is a constant struggle, lol.
Very good video
Hi Becky thanks for the video very interesting my Daughter has a large stainless steel glass lamp it is about a foot tall and 6" x 6" across and is designed to take a church Candle but I want to make it into a garden led lamp with a small solar panel on top I have the electronics and solar panel but don't know how to replace the candle with something that looks the part and gives a good light my solar panel is 5v 20ma charge and I can use a phone battery with lots of leds any ideas, please
great video! keep up the work!
Hi, i just wanted to make a thinner backlit frame what i should use. Help!
Thanks for the info! 👍👊
Preddy thrinting!
LOL
I want to have LED strips on my wall but I dont like the pixely look they give, I thought of using translucent white silicone pipes but those aren't available easily in my area. Do you have any suggestions?
Frosted acrylic www.canalplastic.com/products/frosted-acrylic-tube
nice work 😀
How come you did not say a word about simple sandpaper to make silicon layers above led strips less transparent and more diffuse?)
That's a good tip! I've never tried that before...
I just discovered your UA-cam channel. I love it.
Thank you! Welcome!
Ügyes vagy :) Nagyon fantáziadús :) Szuper! :)
Awesome
Two more diffusion materials to add to the list: white parchment paper and white PEX tubing.
Hey, miss watching your videos ( UA-cam hasn’t been placing them on my new video feed) in reference to LED’s can a Gemma give an led halo dimming function ? Trying to have these led halos I purchased pulse from low light to max light at a random pattern but not sure what the best option is.
Yep, Gemma can fade regular or addressable LEDs. You might try my free beginner Arduino class on Instructables to get started with the coding you'll need
Have you tryed lenticular fabrics or films or polycarbonate plastics?, You definitely are a very creative designer. Love your work!! Keep it up.
There exists lenticular fabric? Link me
I like selenite crystals as led diffusers.
Awesome suggestion, thank you!!
Hiya Becky. I'm wondering what's the effect of clear acrylic on top of LED as I'm building a transilluminator and hoped to get a diffuse effect
Clear acrylic doesn't diffuse (unless you are talking about edge-lighting it, in which case the effect is called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection), it'll just show off all the minor scratches etc. For diffusion with acrylic, use frosted/milky opacities or buff up your clear sheet with fine sandpaper.
nice
ideas
how can I get started with LED lights and making stuff like this
try my free Arduino class on Instructables: www.instructables.com/class/Arduino-Class/
hello, thanks for this awesome vid. was wondering where can i get those scrolling led display that you use for the bag around 1:21 mark? i love doing evening ride on my electric unicycle and been wanting to get something very similar. thanks and be safe
It's a project I made a while ago, link is in the "woven fabric" section of the tutorial linked in the description.
thanks, great Stuff you're doing!
Nice ^^
👍👍👍
🍰🍕🗽
0:42 white paper name please ?
It's just regular printer/office paper
@@BeckyStern ok thanks
What about a led matrix driven off a Raspberry Pi 3 MKIII running RISC OS and programming the matrix using the ARM assembler from inside BBC BASIC if you have four pin leds but you should be able to make flexible led matrices which you can scroll designs or your name across, don't use a laser cutter to cut vinyl or you might wind up inhaling the Endocrine Disrupter fumes best to be safe rather than sorry.
Thank you for the video. neat to see the way light diffuses differently in different cases.
That's the first time I've seen the shadow box technique 0:54, very simple, but quite effective zone technique
Your strip example of different materials is quite the teaching tool 4:30-5:50.
The Crinoline tubing technique is pretty awesome as well 3:58
from a different video this guy has a couple other techniques you might want to look into ua-cam.com/video/mg1qygPJXOY/v-deo.html
He uses a sanding technique, and foams, and shows that distance from the light source makes a difference as well (distance, material, and different light strips)
you're 3d printed material, I'm interested in the material you used, but also what are the typical wall thicknesses you'd use for good diffuse, and how thick the material is when the light almost stops diffusing
between the two videos, yours was good at showing on the strip the different materials and thicknesses. There's another factor you might want to show on your sample strip, which is the distance of the opaque screen from the led light source
a 2 dimensional linear led strip test you could try with students
if you did a simple calculation, you could do a two factor graph
(different opaque material or same material with a different thickness ) * (Distance the opaque material is from the surface from the led) = Diffuse Value Scale Factor
you could then pick different materials (glue, paper, epoxy, .... ) and cause a similar diffuse factor by putting the test specimens at different distance from the light.
now if you throw a 3d printed object at it that changes the ball game,
but you could still show some simple properties to see what looks best for a diffuse scale factor
take a fairly simple geometric shape like a longish cylinder printed with your magic 3d printed material.
3 dimensional cylinder diffuse led strip test
First test, Cylinder - Vary the Diameter (or radius) - you could vary diameter of the cylinder. keeping wall thickness and length of tube constant (pencil cylinder to can shape cylinder)
Second test, Cylinder - Vary the Height - you could try same diameter of cylinde, keeping wall thickness constant, but varying length of the tube (short to long cylinder)
Third test, Cylinder - Vary the Thickness of the material - you could try the above tests but varying the thickness of the 3d printed wall material of the tube (thickness of the material)
[stack these test cylinders side by each on a led test strip, in a matrix formation]
The cylinder diffuse test, would be a lot of work, but it would show off a lot of the diffuse properties on the 3d printed material, in a 3d shape , more complex than the linear factors of the 2d test.
This would give students and designers a somewhat decent idea of what to expect from a 3d printed object with the special 3d printing light diffuse material
(waste less material in future trial and error off of predictive guessing technique)
Anywho, awesome video, and thank you for sharing! If you have any other diffusing techniques to share, please post them :)
and if you or anyone else by chance happen to try the 2-d or 3-d diffuse test above , please share the results
Thank you for the video. neat to see the way light diffuses differently in different cases.
That's the first time I've seen the shadow box technique 0:54, very simple, but quite effective zone technique
Your strip example of different materials is quite the teaching tool 4:30-5:50.
The Crinoline tubing technique is pretty awesome as well 3:58
from a different video this guy has a couple other techniques you might want to look into ua-cam.com/video/mg1qygPJXOY/v-deo.html
He uses a sanding technique, and foams, and shows that distance from the light source makes a difference as well (distance, material, and different light strips)
you're 3d printed material, I'm interested in the material you used, but also what are the typical wall thicknesses you'd use for good diffuse, and how thick the material is when the light almost stops diffusing
between the two videos, yours was good at showing on the strip the different materials and thicknesses. There's another factor you might want to show on your sample strip, which is the distance of the opaque screen from the led light source
a 2 dimensional linear led strip test you could try with students
if you did a simple calculation, you could do a two factor graph
(different opaque material or same material with a different thickness ) * (Distance the opaque material is from the surface from the led) = Diffuse Value Scale Factor
you could then pick different materials (glue, paper, epoxy, .... ) and cause a similar diffuse factor by putting the test specimens at different distance from the light.
now if you throw a 3d printed object at it that changes the ball game,
but you could still show some simple properties to see what looks best for a diffuse scale factor
take a fairly simple geometric shape like a longish cylinder printed with your magic 3d printed material.
3 dimensional cylinder diffuse led strip test
First test, Cylinder - Vary the Diameter (or radius) - you could vary diameter of the cylinder. keeping wall thickness and length of tube constant (pencil cylinder to can shape cylinder)
Second test, Cylinder - Vary the Height - you could try same diameter of cylinde, keeping wall thickness constant, but varying length of the tube (short to long cylinder)
Third test, Cylinder - Vary the Thickness of the material - you could try the above tests but varying the thickness of the 3d printed wall material of the tube (thickness of the material)
[stack these test cylinders side by each on a led test strip, in a matrix formation]
The cylinder diffuse test, would be a lot of work, but it would show off a lot of the diffuse properties on the 3d printed material, in a 3d shape , more complex than the linear factors of the 2d test.
This would give students and designers a somewhat decent idea of what to expect from a 3d printed object with the special 3d printing light diffuse material
(waste less material in future trial and error off of predictive guessing technique)
Anywho, awesome video, and thank you for sharing! If you have any other diffusing techniques to share, please post them :)
and if you or anyone else by chance happen to try the 2-d or 3-d diffuse test above , please share the results