When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
is it expensive to make a fiber optics display? somebody at school drilled out like 400 holes in the shape of an old hot rod and put in all the connectors into the plexiglass but never finished it, my teacher doesn't know about cause the guy was doing it at home and left it at school cause he didnt have much time to finish it. so if any body can tell me how much it will cost to do this.
Cool. Wish I could help. You had me thinking for a second you wanted to do this in your car. Phew. Good luck and take some pics after you're done. :thumbs:
Fiber is a light bridge, if you shine a light in one end it shines out the other. The brighter the source the brighter the result. We use a single halogen light and a color wheel for the starlight ceiling effect for home theaters.
1. Punch the holes for the fiber in the desired pattern
2. Push the strand through with 1" extra, use a dab of super glue on each fiber.
3. Group the strands together on the back side by color. Example, group all the reds together.
4. Use srew through zip ties and create smaller bundles, screw the bundles down 1/4" appart. They should be the size of the LED's you use
5. Mount your LEDS pointing into the fiber, butted right against them. If you have 5 bundles for res, you need 5 leds for red.
6. Repeat for each color.
7. Use cutoffs to flush cut the strands to the surface. You want to cut the strands dead on to the viewing angle.
8. remeber that exsessive bending of the fiber leads to more light loss.
AAAARRRRGGHHH!!! I already typed this once, but my stupid POS computer screwed up trying to post it. :mad :mad
Anyway, here it goes again...
You could use RGB LEDs to do color cycling in the picture. These can also be used to get some interesting colors that most LEDs won't do. Here's a link to them:
As you can see, each one is somewhere from $1 to $5 (I think the $1 one may be mislabelled. I don't think it actually has all three colors). To color cycle them, use three low frequency (below 1 Hz) sine waves 120 degrees apart. The DC component of the waves should be 1/4 of the amplitude. So, a 10V peak to peak wave should have a 2.5V DC component (it should go from +7.5V to -2.5V). This should cycle the colors through the spectrum pretty steadily. Just make sure you use the right resistors for the voltage you're using.
Its just an idea. Maybe more trouble than you were looking for.