Guys, I have a question - I have those yellow acrylic combs. Behind them there are leds to light them up. Thing is leds when lit up they don't light up the whole L shape ribs, you can actually see those leds through the acrylic as dots. They just "too clear"... What could I do to it? cover with frost film? Maybe spray paint with clear lacquer? Or spray with yellow paint, quick coat so light would still come through? Don't get me wrong, I like the result like it is, but was thinking if there is anything that could be done to make it a bit different.
I was playing with LEDs in louvers a while back. They like to fire through only one too. The problem is the narrow beam angle of the led. The only thing I can thin of to fix your problem would be a polished 45 degree block. Light firing into the block would hit the angle, and treat the polished area like a mirror. Some light will bleed through in the original direction. TL;DR= prism mirror, dude. Edit: and I re-read and realize you want diffusion. I'd leave it. Sanding the back side likely wont fix the problem. Everything's too small to get decent diffusion.
Could you share a photo where we can see what the situation is now? The idea is try to hide the light source completely in these kind of situations and try to get the light travel to where it is needed. Backlighting doesn't work in these kind of situations usually. Oh, and it is most likely that you need to frost/sand the edges to get the light to bounce outside from the acrylic along the whole edge. Otherwise the light gets out only from the certain attack angle and this makes it look like a spot when viewed from that angle. ... if that makes sense at all...
Yes, that makes sense. I was thinking about frosting the edges.. even the whole thing. I never sued frost spray paint, that would be the easiest solution. spray paint all sides except inside edge where leds are touching it. Would this kind of paint work?
Basically you want to have the led make a total internal reflection so it will reach every nook and cranny. When you aim the led perpendicular to the surfaces, the led beam angle is so small most of the light will pass straight through with the largest beam angle of perhaps 15 degrees. For acrylic you'd need an angle of about 45 or more to keep all of the beam inside the material. Try tilting the leds or get wide angle leds.
Cheers. These are SDM so they are wide angle leds, I think. Problem is they are behind two 2mm panels so even if they were wide angle they will light through small 3mm hole, which makes the beam pretty narrow. I put soem frost film on one of the fins and noticed that light was a bit "disturbed", led wasn't seen as single dot behind it and was a bit mroe fuzzy, if you knwo what I mean. Maybe that forsting paint wuld work? I was thinking, should I try to "sand" led tips a bit?
Go ahead and test sanding the leds. If it works, it's a cheap fix. I doubt the frost paint will work. You could also try to file a small triangle-shaped gap where the light enters the acrylic to change the angle of incidence.
I'll try both I think. I will first file a triangle in some sample fin I kept and see what happens directly on the ready panel. Then to maximise the effect I'll take a sample led and sand it a bit to see if it makes any difference. Cheers Javerh!
