[Geeksmithing] and [When Geeks Craft] recently came together for a glowing collaboration. They wanted to build ever more attractive lanterns for a local parade event. They recently discovered a fantastic material that can really improve the look of whatever project you might be building with LEDs.
The material is commonly referred to as “Black LED Acrylic” or similar. In this case, it was sourced from TAP Plastics, though you can source similar acrylic from other vendors, too. From first glance, it looks like any other piece of black acrylic plastic. However, shine an LED through it, and it will be beautifully diffused and smoothed out to wonderful visual effect. A simple test of a 3×3 array of LEDs behind a 3D-printed grid shows how good this can look. It almost entirely eliminates hot spots, and the result looks like a display built out of juicy glowing cubes. The duo used this material to produce giant pixel art lanterns for their local parade. We only get a glimpse at the final build, but it appears giant Pacman and Blinky totems are on the way.
If you’ve been struggling to find a good way to diffuse the light from LEDs, you might want to give this stuff a try. Alternatively, you might explore some other methods we’ve looked at before, and don’t discount ping pong balls, either.
Does anyone know how this material handles rear projection?
I was wondering that too. I think it depends on where the diffusion happens. If the material is tinted but ‘clear’, with only a diffusion treatment on one surface, it could work quite well. If the material is diffuse throughout, it might get too blurry?
Both front and rear projection are super vibrant with front being slightly more crisp.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TRBh0J8o1mg?si=JBTjtZDKnDxFRLVy
Looks like it acts exactly like slightly fuzzed, tinted ulexite or cut/polished fiber optic chunks, often used as small desk ornaments. An image projected on the matte face should “jump” to the front of the sheet. You can see a hint of that in the video.
Lacking a 3D printer I’d also look into certain office light fixture diffusers, and egg crates.
Thanks Hackaday for the great writeup!
Oh cool, these guys are local to me
You should come out to the Lantern Parade on Jan 10th then and say hello!