Plastic LED diffusion tubes?

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can buy these tubes that are used to kind of diffuse light. They are used in LED applications. The first time I saw one was in a Canon LiDE scanner, where they used LED's instead of flourescant light. It's basically a clear plastic tube with micro scratches in forms of concentric circles on the tubes. They are also used by BMW in their tail lights and by after market manufacturers of the good old "LED angel eye kits" I need them in strait bars, anyone have any clue where I can find them?


pics below.

This is not not exactly what you're looking for but it might be close.

It may be possible to heat the "angel eyes kit" and bend them striaght. Heat gun or HOT water. Jus' an idea.

What's the application for?

DaFABRICATA said:

It may be possible to heat the "angel eyes kit" and bend them striaght. Heat gun or HOT water. Jus' an idea.

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I thought of that, but those things are expensive. It wouldnt be to logical to pay $40+ for two pieces of molded acrylic. I tried looking for replacement strips for those canon scanners, but had no luck

DaFABRICATA said:

What's the application for?

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There are too many I have in mind for this stuff, but the current one is a Plexi Glass LED picture frame with this stuff as surround lighting. Anyone know how much it would cost to get this stuff molded?? Its just plastic tube with zigzag pattern on one side.

Nice, Good luck in your quest. If I come up with anything I'll repost.

what about making a mold and doing it yourself with optical grade epoxy? not sure on the cost on that..... you could also heat and melt some plexiglass into a mold, it would be best if it can be vacume molded.... you could get creative with a shop vac and some duct tape lol..... several of us are on a quest for cheap custom optics, but this seems to be the elusive unicorn

You may be interested by this product :

Luminit releases a line of extreme elliptical diffusers with high transmission efficiencies (>85%) that are ideal for homogenizing and diffusing LED strip lights.

The above is an extract of this short article :
http://ledsmagazine.com/press/14290

Liminit address : http://www.luminitco.com/

Calina said:

You may be interested by this product :

Luminit releases a line of extreme elliptical diffusers with high transmission efficiencies (>85%) that are ideal for homogenizing and diffusing LED strip lights.

The above is an extract of this short article :
http://ledsmagazine.com/press/14290

Liminit address : http://www.luminitco.com/

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thank you!!! that is what i have been looking for on my tail light mod, i wonder how much the sheets are.... time to send an email....

Im kind of confused about Calina's post. Are those tubes or sheets??? I couldnt find the product in their website either. Hizzo3, you seem like you've struck gold, care to share the full link? thanks!

they are sheets, but what you can do is an led bar of superfluxes, and space out the sheet how ever far from the light bar you need to get your diffusion you want.

Thanks for the link Calina

hizzo3 said:

they are sheets, but what you can do is an led bar of superfluxes, and space out the sheet how ever far from the light bar you need to get your diffusion you want.

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So its basically frosted sheet type of thing that makes the light look like as if it were a solid. Not quite what I was looking for, but very close. Ill look into it. Thanks for the link!

depends on what sheet you get and how far you space the sheet from the leds.... i understand your looking for i guess light pipeing....but most of it is custom made....

LightBright said:

Thanks for the link Calina

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Glad this helped some.

If you want to try your hand at a more DIY solution, check out this link. The guy made those "angel eyes" for his Civic CRX. Pretty resourceful fellow.

AvroArrow said:

If you want to try your hand at a more DIY solution, check out this link. The guy made those "angel eyes" for his Civic CRX. Pretty resourceful fellow.

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aha! more like what I was looking for! Perfect solution, only if I could figure out how to make the "scratching" part more efficient. Thanks dude!


edit: why didn't I think of that ! :thinking: :duh2:

imagine that angle eyes with 2 blue lux3s in there......