Would it be silly idea to cover a white LED with a coloured layer of plastic to give the light a ‘tint’?
Some eastern countries used to manufacture car stereos and whatnot with a plastic cot put on a BB LED to make the screen or buttons to glow in blue.
Blue was the hype thing in the early 2000s where I lived, some hacked their phone inserting blue acetate behind the keyboard.
Real buttons…I know
Can’t think of a reason why it would not work, mainly because I don’t know a lot about silicone. I’m sure some could list a few reasons. Teach me!
So one big issue with that is that it tints the light by blocking some wavelengths of light and letting the wavelengths of the desired colour through. The side effect of this is that, depending on what colour it is and how deep you want it, it is much much dimmer and far less efficient.
As to actual feasibility… I’ll let Amal or someone else deal with that side of it!
I don’t think it’s silly… but it might not have the exact effect you were hoping for… LEDs release a lot of light from a very small point inside the LED’s casing, and it is not well diffused only a fraction of a millimeter away from this source point and the outer casing of the LED itself. This light intensity tends to “push through” tinting, specially when the layer of tint is very thin… so ultimately you will probably not get the desired result… not really… and at best you might get a bright spot of off-color and the surrounding area properly tinted in the color mix you want.
Also there are some odd things happening with certain colors of LEDs… some do not actually emit the color you are seeing but a collection of wavelengths which mix in your eye / brain to produce the color you think you are seeing… so adding tint over top of this will create a color mix for each wavelength emitted that will probably not result in the ultimate color you want to see. I like this guy;
Indeed!
The reason I asked this, because I came along with a similar challenge with a photo project.
The light that my DIY torch casts varies from looking into the LED directly. So the result could be at least questionable.
On the other hand I am almost certain there would be some Beta testers volunteering to try different shades.
…I would risk to presume: prototyping it would not be too expensive.
I can’t tell how time consuming it is though.
Diffusing the light source even if small is also possible. Frensel (frenel) lens would be slightly more effective, compared to a diffuesr.
Are they available in SMD?? Wouldn’t be surprised.
Maybe you can tell if it actually worth investigating this topic, or just get a purple LED sourced. ¯_( ツ )_/¯
To build on this,
The side effect of blocking some of the wavelengths is that the energy from them has to go somewhere, and if it’s not out of your hand as light then it’s into your hand as heat.
How much heat? No idea. But it’ll be heat none the less.
In a previous post of mine I eluded to this effect. When using a white flashlight the flesh only transmits the red wavelengths, everything else is converted to heat. It got hot enough that I could only hold my hand on it for around 3 seconds.
Conversely, when using a red flashlight, because nearly all of the light is transmitted with very little absorption, I was able to hold my hand on it almost indefinitely.
I suppose though that the difference is my white flashlight was ~3800 lumens, while the implants are significantly less than that
You absolutely can use coloured plastic to colour light. Look up lighting gels.
As others have pointed out, these are usually used on incandescent lights with a wide wavelength band. With LEDs producing usually multiple narrow bands and tricking your eye into thinking its white, you’d need to use a different colour gel or combination of gels than you’d use on an incandescent bulb.
As an example, using a purple gel on an incandecent light works by blocking all but the purple, resulting in purple light. If you wanted to do the same with a white LED, you’d need to block all of the green, but pass some blue and some red - a purple gel will block most of the blue and red so you’ll get something dim and vaguely purple.
You’d be able to get something useable maybe by experimenting with blue and red gels used in combination to get a purple looking result, but because colour is weird and LEDs are narrow band, you’re in the realm of art and not science.
TL;DR: Potentially possible, unlikely to be practical.
This is correct, in the world of theatre lighting, it destroys and discolours the lighting gels - they are a consumable, and its enough heat that it can very quickly destroy them.
Gels have a limited life, especially in saturated colors (lower light transmission) and shorter wavelength (blues). The color will fade or even melt, depending upon the energy absorption of the color, and the sheet will have to be replaced. In permanent installations and some theatrical uses, colored glass filters or dichroic filters are used. The main drawbacks are additional expense and a more limited selection.
I just wanna de-rail for a sec and say I freaking love how this community comes from so many different backgrounds, and your comment just reminded me of this. There is a massive wealth of knowledge here, you’re all so freaking kickass.
Lo habra, despues de la inversion… Lo habra.
Lastima que no pude apoyar economicamente ya que tuve que resucitar mi pequeño negocio, ahora ya empieza a funcionar, saludos.
chances are good… if all things work out properly then likely in 2021 we will start looking into batch 2… but for now we’re not even sure the welding is going right. we should have first results in a few weeks.
Ok people… the shipment is coming to us now from the finishers. We are setting up now for field strength tests, aggressive testing methods, etc. and designing the sterilization chamber packs necessary to keep the magnets apart from each other during processing.
Unfortunately, the laser etcher debacle is still a thing… we’re working it out with Glowforge now but it’s not looking good. We may not have laser markings after all if this doesn’t get resolved… but we fight on…
I will post updates and photos once the Titans arrive and we can start testing.
Ohhh, Exciting! Can’t wait for those results, and maybe some insights into those processes.
And for the Laser debacle, kinda sucks but it’s not something needed in the end. Would be an awesome little thing to have but it isn’t going to be visible in the end after all.
Teach me!
