Diffuser material

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sojo

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I am building a custom 53 Chevy truck. I have installed 2 15" led strips in the roll pan which is rather low......I currently am using red lexan in front of the leds but the light from the leds are too focused and if not viewed at the appropriate angle they are not effective. I need some material to go between the leds and the red lexan that will simulate the leds in auto tail lights.....can anyone make some suggestion regarding this?? thanks sojo
 
Thanks for the info.....this would be hard for me to do....my leds are mounted on a printed circuit board. Has anyone heard of putting stencil film in front of an led to diffuse the light?
 
You might think about using diffusion used in camera flash modifiers. For smaller neopixel rings, I've bought regular modifiers and cut them up.

I did a google search for 'flash diffusion fabric' and this came up:

And here are two articles about what types of material to use for diffusers:

I purchased the ALZO Nylon Silk Diffusion Fabric White, 60 Inches Wide, by the Yard earlier this year just to see how well it worked for a 16x16 inch, 12 x 12 RGB LED matrix. I found the material to be too delicate, prone to getting creases, sagging, wrinkles, and didn't diffuse enough if placed right against the LEDs. Others may be able to get better results. However, I would like something stiffer and that I can make stand off of the LEDs about 1/4".
 
@sojo: can you provide us a picture of how you will have the LEDs mounted so we can see the size and shape?
 
I'd suggest sanding or sandblasting the back side of the Lexan.

Conventional indicators use parabolic reflectors or Fresnel lenses (or both) with omni-directional incandescent bulbs to get most of the light straight out the back to be visible to following traffic, with some dispersing up and to the sides so you can see the lights from all angles. That won't work with pre-mounted LED strips.

If you sand the back of the Lexan, the directional light will be diffused and spread out all directions more or less evenly. Standing near the truck it will seem bright, but it might not be bright enough from far away to the rear. Wouldn't want you to get a ticket for insufficient lighting.

Before modifying anything, have you sat in another car from say 50-100 feet away? Maybe the existing lights are hard to see while standing next to the truck but bright from road level.

If the lights are pointed downward due to the curvature of the roll pan, and you can't make some kind of wedge to point the LED strips straight back (or the lamps would look bad if you did) you probably don't have much choice other than to try diffusing the light in this (or some other) way.
 
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