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

LED art

[saskboy]

I've thought for a while that there are great possibilities for LED art. One project I'm not ambitious enough to set out to complete, would be a country's flag, arranged like lite-brites into the recognizable pattern and colours. The whole thing would be powered by a tiny windmill, making it a wind powered flag.

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:Don't forget to wear sunglasses.

[ardle]

I got quite bad eye-burn from a UV spotlight (was standing about 2 metres from it for about 2 hours): not a nice experience.
Didn't notice any effect until about the following evening (thought something was in my eye). I woke in the middle of that night with stabbing pains in my eyes. Next day, daylight hurt my eyes. I couldn't even look at the flame of a candle. Thankfully, eye ointment soothed it and the problem eased the next day (disappeared over the next two or three).
Doctor couldn't figure out what had happned to me - I only figured it out (after the visit) cos the weather was cold and relief of cold breeze on my face made me realise I had got sunburnt!

Fascinating

[djlemma]

I haven't read the whole article, but anything having to do with LED technology is interesting to me. It's interesting, though, that the author doesn't seem to understand color mixing in pigment vs. light.

He says-
"You mix red paint and green light, you get what appears to be yellow light."

That's not true. If you mix red LIGHT and green light, you get what looks like yellow light. If you shine green light on red paint you get a ugly dark mess. The red paint doesn't reflect the green light very well- the reason it's red is because it reflects the red portion of the spectrum. So, when you light it with green, the light that's reflected off the red is not going to be very intense, it certainly won't be yellow.

Also important is the fact that green is a primary color in light, while yellow is a primary color in pigment. If you shine green light on yellow paint, you'll actually reflect a lot of green, and if you shine yellow light on green paint it'll also (you guessed it) reflect lots of green.

I think it's interesting that he's finding out how the horrible color rendition capabilities of LED's can be used to one's advantage, but I don't know if he really understands all the theory involved...

Re:damnit

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, if the reporting is accurate and she did indeed try to walk through a security checkpoint, wearing a bundle of wires and circuitry on her chest without responding to security personnel when they asked what the thing on her shirt was, the blame for that incident lies squarely on the MIT student's shoulders. While the reporting was heinously distortive, it was never quite as wrong as you got it.

Not even faux news said she tried to walk through a "security checkpoint" - all she did was ask a question of the person at the info desk.

The person at the info desk - NOT EVEN VAGUELY SECURITY PERSONNEL - asked her what the LEDS were, she said "art" and then continued about her business.

The blame lies solely on stupid CYA security policies that require a "response no matter what" -- that's escalation without application of rational thinking. You've got one dumb cluck of a info-desk clerk, who probably doesn't even have a high school diploma, causing a major incident that could have been easily avoided if anyone at any step of the way had applied a degree of critical thought to the issue. What's next? Exvacutation because someone dreams about a bomb?

Don't think for a minute that any of this anti-terrorism "security" is about protecting anyone from actual threats. They might as well name them the Department of the CYA because their sole purpose is to protect the asses of the people in charge. If they react completely out of proportion to any perceived threat, then when an actual threat slips through they can point at all of their over-the-top reactions in the past as proof of 'diligence' thus insuring their asses are well covered, and may even get increased funding...

This institutionalized cowardice is destroying our country, it has got to stop or we will never be able to maintain our status as the largest superpower.