MIT Student Gets Artistic With LED Art

Gibbs-Duhem writes "An MIT graduate student has up a page showcasing a standout art project. He's designed custom LED light fixtures which are seven times brighter than the closest similar commercial models, and include colors which can't be reproduced by a normal RGB cluster (including two ridiculously bright UV LEDs). The result: some beautiful mixed media artwork. The author's goal is to eventually publish a guide to make getting into creating such artwork more accessible to the general public. The site includes lots of great photos and a movie of the art in action. It also has in depth descriptions of the theory involved in this relatively new form of art, an explanation of how the paints were chosen, and an in depth technical discussion of how such lights are designed with schematics and board layouts for those who might wish to build their own lights."

Comments

Don't forget to wear sunglasses.

[cjdavis]

Doesn't UV cause cataracts?

Ah yes, from the article:

As a word of warning, the NCSU034A LEDs output over 300mW of UV light at 385nm! This is a LOT! What makes them especially dangerous is that the die is only a millimeter or two on a side, so the angular intensity of the light is extremely high. Do *NOT* turn these on in an environment where anyone can look directly at them. They are extremely dangerous to the eye, and you will have a *permanent* blind spot if you look directly at them. To make them safe, I used polyethylene plastic sandwiching a Luminit Holographic Light Shaping Diffuser (LSD... yeah, I know, they came up with the acronym first) an inch and a half away from the board to make the apparent source size over an inch in diameter. This decreases the angular intensity from the class 3b level to the class 1 level. I am not liable if you blind yourself by using these LEDs! Seriously, don't fuck around with these.

Funny story that. Every time I tell an MIT student that the UV LEDs will permanently blind them if they remove the cover, the response is the same. First, they say "Really?", and then they attempt to look into the endcap. True story. Explains a lot, I think.

Re:Fascinating

[batkiwi]

He gets it but just has a bit of a typo. If you read the rest of that paragraph it's obvious he meant "You mix red light and green light, you get what appears to be yellow light."

I say this because he later remarks on:
-"You may think you're seeing yellow light, but the fact is that you are seeing independent red and green light, and your brain is converting that information into the appearance of yellow"
-pointing a "yellow" LED at "yellow" paint (black!!)
-pointing an "orange" LED at "orange" paint made by mixing yellow and red paints (red!!)
etc

Don't crucify him for just one word mixed up.