Fiber optic fabric and LED lights

[RaeyofLight]

So I'm continuing a project I did last year where I created this costume for a convention. There is a 3D view on the page. We are going again so I am creating the shoulder pieces to go with it. There are ghostly wings that emanate from back LED and I was considering creating a wire fairy like wings with fiber optic fabric to attach to the back. However I don't know how I would go about constructing this since the back piece has its' own LED and how would I get light into the fabric from there. I'm not sure if I ought to like... have the Circular light board emanating out and use another smaller LED to shrink into the fabric?

I found this link which talks about getting a large amount of light to flood into the fabric... Seems dangerous tho if it needs fan. Other lights I found were
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__28512__Blue_16_LED_Circular_Light_Board_with_Lead.html

 

[audioguru]

The Luxeon LED used in the Sparkfun project is American, has a truthful datasheet and is extremely bright. It gets hot so it needs a fan for cooling.
The very cheap Chinese blue LED thing from Hobby King has no datasheet and has no mention of its brightness but it heats with 7W so it also probably needs a fan for cooling.

 

[RaeyofLight]

I thought one of the nice things about LEDs are that they don't get very hot, I guess that's not true for disk panels like these? So that no matter what I do, I'll have to put in a fan and design a top mesh so the heat can escape?

 

[audioguru]

I thought one of the nice things about LEDs are that they don't get very hot, I guess that's not true for disk panels like these? So that no matter what I do, I'll have to put in a fan and design a top mesh so the heat can escape?

An incandescent light bulb filament operates at 2000 degrees C. 90 percent of the power it uses makes heat, not light. The heat does not hurt it.
An LED is not in a vacuum and is destroyed if it reaches a temperature higher than about 120 degrees C. About 15 percent of the power it uses makes heat, not light.
Then a 10W LED produces 10W of heat and about the same amount of light as a 60W incandescent light bulb.

The LED streetlights on my street have many large aluminum fins on top to dissipate the heat into the ambient air, not to collect bird droppings.

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

How much light do you need? These get as bright as an LED flashlight. I don't think they need cooling.
Cool White,(5500K), 10mm Super Bright LED in a Water clear case. 15000mcd, typ. light output . Max forward current 30mA continuous, 20mA recommended.
5VDC Max reverse Voltage.
3.8VDC typ. 4.5V max. Forward voltage drop.
15deg. View angle. 1" leads.
https://www.mpja.com/10mm-Super-Bright-White-LED-15000mcd/productinfo/15415%20OP

 

[audioguru]

The Super Bright LED looks bright only when its very narrow 15 degrees beam shines directly at you. To light many strands of fiber optic fabric from the inside I think a wide light beam is needed that is produced by a high power LED.

 

[RaeyofLight]

The Super Bright LED looks bright only when its very narrow 15 degrees beam shines directly at you. To light many strands of fiber optic fabric from the inside I think a wide light beam is needed that is produced by a high power LED.

Right, which is why I was looking into the LED stars. The particular device in the tutorial is meant to help keep the fibers in place and concentrate the light through it...

An incandescent light bulb filament operates at 2000 degrees C. 90 percent of the power it uses makes heat, not light. The heat does not hurt it.
An LED is not in a vacuum and is destroyed if it reaches a temperature higher than about 120 degrees C. About 15 percent of the power it uses makes heat, not light.
Then a 10W LED produces 10W of heat and about the same amount of light as a 60W incandescent light bulb.

Which makes sense to what I was told about LEDs being cooler, more output of light for less power. With a fade animation, I doubt the LED would be as hot as an LED that is constantly on... Would an aluminum heat sink and fan make the LED safer for the wearer? 10W still sounds pretty hot.

 

[audioguru]

Without a large aluminum finned heatsink or a smaller one with a fan then a 10W LED might last only a few seconds when its temperature exceeds its maximum allowed temperature.

 

[RaeyofLight]

Ok, a high power LED seems like it would be completely unsafe in a garment. What should I be using then for the fabric and front lights?

 

[Misterbenn]

My friend put fibre optics between his floor tiles in his bathroom, when looking at light sources he looked at three options:

1. self designed LED with focusing lens and optic coupler
2. buy an expensive professional light source
3. use a £3 LED torch from china with some heat shrink

He went for the torch approach and it works brilliantly. With a torch the LED housing and heat sinking are already taken care of for you, the coupling was achieved with just some heat shrink round the end of the torch and the fibres.

 

[audioguru]

Ok, a high power LED seems like it would be completely unsafe in a garment. What should I be using then for the fabric and front lights?

I do not know how bright you need the fiber optic fiber to be and if it is demonstrated in darkness or in sunlight.
A 10W LED is dangerous only if it is not cooled properly with a large aluminum heatsink or with a smaller heatsink plus small fan. An incandescent light will produce much more heat for the same brightness.

I made a "night light" with 36 wide angle large red LEDs, each one operating at 2.2V/53mA which is 0.117W each. The total heating is 4.2W. The 36 LEDs are soldered onto a circuit board and housed in the clear plastic case for a compact tape cassette with many cooling holes in it. The printed wiring of the circuit board and pins on the LEDs become a heatsink and radiate the heat into the ambient air. The case has tall feet so that cool air can enter the case from the bottom then when heated it escapes from the top.
The case almost melted and has stress lines all over it. It gets hot enough so it cannot be held in my hand but it does not burn me. It is very bright (too bright).

Yesterday at a home improvement products store I saw new LED light bulbs for your home that have 24 tiny LEDs in a round area about 4cm (2.5") in diameter. The light was rated at only 1.2W and was not bright. I asked a salesman, "What can it be used for since it is so dim?" He said, "I dunno". This light bulb is not used bare but is mounted in a fixture so it cannot be touched.

 

[4pyros]

The Super Bright LED looks bright only when its very narrow 15 degrees beam shines directly at you. To light many strands of fiber optic fabric from the inside I think a wide light beam is needed that is produced by a high power LED.

Or use many low power LEDs and no cooling.
Nothing says all the fiber optic strands need to go to the same LED.

 

[cowboybob]

So I'm continuing a project I did last year where I created this costume for a convention. There is a 3D view on the page. We are going again so I am creating the shoulder pieces to go with it. There are ghostly wings that emanate from back LED and I was considering creating a wire fairy like wings with fiber optic fabric to attach to the back. However I don't know how I would go about constructing this since the back piece has its' own LED and how would I get light into the fabric from there. I'm not sure if I ought to like... have the Circular light board emanating out and use another smaller LED to shrink into the fabric?

I found this link which talks about getting a large amount of light to flood into the fabric... Seems dangerous tho if it needs fan. Other lights I found were
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__28512__Blue_16_LED_Circular_Light_Board_with_Lead.html

This vendor does it somehow... (Didn't see any heatsinks [or any of the electronics], some battery powered). Anyway, ideas for you.
http://www.lumigram.com/catalog/index.php?language=en

 

[shortbus=]

A dumb question, don't optic fibers only show light at the end? By that I mean, do they actually glow full length? The only ones I'm familiar with are the ones encased in a black sheath.

 

[audioguru]

A normal optical fiber is lighted at one end and the light comes out of the other end.
But the fiber optic fabric appears to glow all over it. Then the total amount of light is diffused causing it to be dimmed.

 

[RaeyofLight]

A dumb question, don't optic fibers only show light at the end? By that I mean, do they actually glow full length? The only ones I'm familiar with are the ones encased in a black sheath.

Cowboy's link is a good example of what I'm going for.

I do not know how bright you need the fiber optic fiber to be and if it is demonstrated in darkness or in sunlight.
A 10W LED is dangerous only if it is not cooled properly with a large aluminum heatsink or with a smaller heatsink plus small fan. An incandescent light will produce much more heat for the same brightness.

I made a "night light" with 36 wide angle large red LEDs, each one operating at 2.2V/53mA which is 0.117W each. The total heating is 4.2W. The 36 LEDs are soldered onto a circuit board and housed in the clear plastic case for a compact tape cassette with many cooling holes in it. The printed wiring of the circuit board and pins on the LEDs become a heatsink and radiate the heat into the ambient air. The case has tall feet so that cool air can enter the case from the bottom then when heated it escapes from the top.
The case almost melted and has stress lines all over it. It gets hot enough so it cannot be held in my hand but it does not burn me. It is very bright (too bright).

It'll be a dimly lit environment over all, most of the walls are black or black curtains. I would like it to be bright like the ones shown in luminous' website. Course they don't really show what they used to light their fabrics, nor is it very affordable, compared to the optics on sparkfun https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12712.

So thinking about my design, I just wanted to throw up a sketch of a possible design and what I'm looking for....

Sorry for the shaky lines... my cintiq doesn't seem to like windows 8 lol..
I like your idea of having multiple LEDs on a circuit board. I doubt I need 37 lol... I mean... how large of a heat sink are we talking? I hope that a little reflective dome would help enhance the light as well. As you see, the the shoulders are an encasing so tis why I worry about heat management... I guess a air gap under the device would help with air cooling. The LED that the fabric is going through probably has to be the brightest bulb just to light all of those fiber strands, but the surrounding ones can be dimmer. I also wanted to embed a small computer that had a fade animation.

I'm considering thick shoulder pads for the spaulders to rest on for comfort and a buffer from the heat...

 

[4pyros]

With a good fiber cable there is vary little if not any light escape from the sides of the tubes, otherwise they would not work.

 

[Misterbenn]

actually you can buy side emitting fibre

 

[audioguru]

Raey, you do not understand that the bundle of optic fibers is small and a small LED shines its light in a very narrow angle into the end of the bundle. Then your multiple LEDs and reflective dome cannot be used. The Sparkfun demo video used an ordinary low power narrow angle (superbright) LED and the optical fibers in a darkened room appeared very dim.

I have never seen a high power LED with a narrow angle but some kind of focussing will do it.

 

[RaeyofLight]

Well, I certainly need to talk to a friend about this. I spent some time studying electronics, and looking for even more resources.
Getting a focus for the LED was certainly a goal. Are all high power LEDs flat and square on the star and have a 120 degree beam? Cause I might just use the Ultra bright LED since it is a 5000 mcd and seems easier to get a heat shrink around. I may end up using the Neo pixal ring from Adafruit for the surrounding LEDs. I updated the design too...