Hey thanks for the welcome Jeff.
So far, it seems that
http://www.jameco.com has the best price for super bright leds so far.... like .15 cents each if you buy 100 or so. I'm still looking for sources for cheap circuit boards and project boxes.
Here's a link to some background info on this subject:
http://heelspurs.com/led.html#journal
Lil more info.....
HEALING WITH SINGLE FREQUENCY LIGHT
by: Olszewski, David, E.E., I.E.
EARLY EXPERIMENTS
In 1965, the Russians and Czechs were trying to
standardize colour therapy, which is the use of colours to treat the
body. When they used a single colour on a number of people, they got
different reactions because colour affects emotions and produces
different effects. The Russians wanted to have a standard treatment,
so they theorized that if they isolated one frequency of blue, or
red, they could duplicate colour therapy on a regulated basis. They
started separating different frequencies with lasers, and they
discovered a lot more than they expected to find. They discovered
that a single frequency light in a laser can stimulate DNA in damaged
cell tissue. They used a low power laser under 50-milliwatts because
higher lasers can cut tissue.
PULSED VS.CONTINUOUS LASER
They discovered that if they used a pulsed
laser light, the tissue healed rapidly. On the other hand, if they
gave a continuous beam, it sedated the cell and killed the pain. When
a single frequency pulsed light hit the cell, it actually stimulated
the cell to start producing more protein than it normally does, and
as a result, the cell would heal. Even when they took the light away,
the cell continued its healing. The continuous beam had a reverse
effect. It actually caused the cell membrane to relax; it killed
pain, reduced inflammation and made muscle tissue relax.
INCREASED HEALING IN THE 660 nm WAVELENGTH
It didn't matter what the
frequency was. It could be infrared, red, blue, or green, as long as
it was single although, as you move toward the red end of the
spectrum, the rate of cellular regeneration increased. For instance,
a single frequency in the green range might affect the kidney 40
times better than a normal base-line study, whereas a red would be
about 4,000 times faster. So over the years they migrated to
infrared, red and eventually the 660 nanometer wavelength because it
was the fastest way to regenerate tissue. So if you have an injury
you would normally recover from in ten days, you can actually recover
that tissue in two days by treating it with light.
