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Light Strips for Home Decoration?
Smegoid asks: " Three cheers for light strips for case mods and all that, but what about light strips for interior TRON style design? Wouldn't mind Tron'ing out my apartment. Anyone know a source for strips longer than 1.5m? What about powering the stuff without using a computer power supply. The potential for light strips goes well beyond a computer case. Think lightcycles, think MCP!" I wouldn't go as far as TRON but a room tricked out with a nice glow-light would make for a really cool effect. If case strip mods aren't an effective way to get this kind of look, is there another way to go? Long before I discovered light strips, I thought that fiber optics and some colorized light source might be the way to go, but what kind of light sources work best with fiber for best described as "mood lighting"?
http://www.eighthreality.com/
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Look under the illuminescense category for "EL-Wire"
Good stuff.. Ordered from here before
ChiefArcher
http://coolneon.com/.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Varad doesn't seem to have their own website, but I've seen these in the car stereo world. You'd have to have a 12V DC power source at home, but that shouldn't be too hard to set up.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
I remember seeing some xmas lights like this along some peoples walkways last year. I didn't think it looked very good but there were a few of them around. After halloween you should be able to find them.
In Republican America phones tap you.
not really ravers... more of burning man people
I have a friend who's mother has a pool. Around the lip of the pool is a solid "band" that changes color. Its almost like a multi-color indiglo. Maybe ask a pool shop?
Another vote for coolneon.
Not only do they sell the wire, but they are geek friendly: Providing Soldering Instructions for the novice, will offer advice on how to build your own driver or sequencer (Using parts from used disposable cameras), host EL Wire howto's in the SF Bay Area, etc.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Plain ol' Rope Light is generally the best way to go, as it is spliceable and dimmable and relatively inexpensive.
bp
That was a very nice post. I'm sure you put a lot of hard work into it. Good little /.er.
/.er, and didn't even have to buy anything
There... I patronized a
I metamoderate, therefore I am
There's all sorts of interesting lighting possibilities from places like Lucifer Lighting.
How about a link boxer boy! I couldn't find shit about 'RealLight'(tm) bulbs on GE sites or from Google.
"Get them before they get....
I am a lighting product engineer for GE, and our new 'RealLight'(tm) bulbs are very good for this type of lighting. Also, you'd be patronizing a fellow /.er :-))
Patronizing mode on. Since you're new here, we typically post a link whenver possible. Especially if our employers use websites that require Java to successfully navigate ("Mouse over for more information" is not acceptable). I'm not dogging you for working for a mega-corp, just that if you expect someone to look at what you're doing (and believe me, I was interested for 7-8 minutes), you need to help us out. I'm not familiar with all your product lines, you will undoubtedly be more efficient navigating them and pointing out the wonderful fruits of your labor. 5 minutes of your time finding the product you recommend, whose sale inflates your paychecks/ bonuses, are 5 minutes that 50 or more people here won't have to spend. Patronizing mode off**
I don't use Java -- the most obnoxious non-stop moving, color cycling ads that are so distracting that I can't read the text are flash -- which won't show up on my machine with Java and Javascript disabled.
FlatLight by E-Lite technologies is an EL strip that can come in lengths of 300 feet and several different widths. Not sure if you can get smaller lenghts. It gets quite expensive, though. 300 feet of inch-wide strip is $1600. You can do some pretty kickass stuff with it, though.
You can get them at lots of places. Even Wal-Mart has started carrying rope lights in the lighting section. But there is something you have to be careful about on these.
Before making a BIG purchase of rope lights for my gameroom, I bought two brands. I wanted the color blue. One strand was, indeed blue. The other strand said blue, but its color (unlit) was obviously purple!
You know what? When lit, the purple one actually was blue and looked great. But the blue one? Turns out that in low lighting, it looked more like white lights with a faint blue glow from the tube.
So be careful, if you do use rope lights, to determine the quality of the color produced by them before you use them.
BTW, Wal-Mart also has automotive neon lights for cheap. But I noticed something. A few months after being on display, running 24x7, all of their demo tubes have started experiencing problems. They don't glow anymore. Kind of arc around like one of those balls you put your hand on and see the sparks inside the glass sphere.
Also, if you search on Ebay for "pc neon" - you will get some references to various clear LED lit fans that would make for interesting case mods (provided you keep the fans clean).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I'ld recommend that you go with LEDs instead. Lots more flexibility. Far more options.
Let me give you a few of the links from the upcoming LED section of my site. (Yep, that was a plug.)
American Science and Surplus
Inner Mountain Outfitters
Gilway
Superbright LEDs
Overall you'll find that they'll work with any decent source of 3.5 to 6 volt (depending on the LED) current, which includes the cheesy little plug-in transformers that you can buy at Radio Shack. But they'll work better off battery power or some other means that is truly DC. I ran a tiny custom jobbie in my bathroom as a functional light source for weeks, all running off standard nine-volt batteries. I just turned it on and left it on to see how long it would last. These, BTW, were rebuilt versions of the LED-based clip-on lights that they sell for bike riders.
Of course if you've got a cheap supply of watch batteries or have a recharger for them then you could just hang photons about the place.
Lastly, if you're just going for cool low-level lighting, good old FLAME can be plenty of fun. In other words, don't dismiss the possibilities of oil lamps and such until you've tried them. Properly set up, especially if they're indirect, they give a just variable enough glow to be quite satisfying. I've also had fun with building custom lamps based on isopropyl alcohol. You know, the stuff sold for 99 cents a bottle to put on small cuts. A big (say, two inches around) alcohol flame in a deep container with a well setup oxygen supply will last for hours. Since the flame isn't very hot, is non-toxic, and blows out readily it's easy to experiment using things like soup bowls while you figure out what you want to do. Yo could cheat and go somewhere like Illuminations (I'm not providing a link, there are too many mall businesses as it is) and buy wicks, but you shouldn't need to bother.
And with all of this the fire department has only come by here once (damn those witnesses!).
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.