CRYSTALITE by tonyb

Heres one of my big clear quartz crystal specimens being illuminated by a RGB led only. I plan on add circuitry to randomly change colors. Looks much better in person the camera can't begin to display the differing range of colors displayed. Has anyone else checked this effect out yet I've been keeping it a secret for a while now I'm sure other people know about it by now.

OH! That must be beautiful in person, not to mention it's a great excuse to turn the lights down low when you're with a lady. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

How big is the quartz crystal? I'm interested in seeing more pictures.

The crystal it 4 inches high by 2-1/2 inches wide by 1-3/4 thick. The fractured and uneven surface scatters the light nicely. Heres another smaller Terminated Quartz crystal specimen.

Yeah, I was gonna try this out about 5 months ago...I was going to mount the leds under the quartz in a wooden base with a switch.

That's a beautiful crystal... How do you have it mounted?

The crystal sits upright on its own and I shine the leds through the crytal towards the veiwer. Theres no base just a set of red green and blue leds a limiting resistor and a dc supply at this point. If you haven't tried this one yet I say do it its pretty cool to look at all the trippy colors man! As far as the quartz crystal goes check ebay. I got my crystals at wholesale gem/rock shows. The big chunk is from brazil and the small terminated one is from Arkansas were excellent quality crystals come from.

Yeah..i have a huge phantom quartz... I was going to mount on a wooden base... with the led under the crystal pointing UP through it. I really like how blue 5mm leds light up the quartz. It's a great replacement for candles. Great mood lighting...

This is looking very good.
My experiments were on bubbled glas with a colourchanging RGB-lightsource (Luxeon 1w red,green,royalblue) based on a PIC12c508 controller. It cycles through all the possible colours (>16mio) automatically with an optional 'freeze' and colourchanging strobe effect, selectable by switches. I also use the lightsource to have some light on my drums when playing in a dark club. Unfortunately there are no pictures yet, because my camera is still in the shop waiting for me to buy it....
If you are interested i can give you the schematic for the colourchanger.
greetings
Joachim

RGBrianbow. You and I have a common interest in bubble glass. I have some commercial multi-color LED displays for the clear glass but I would like to have a couple of devices that use clear LEDs for my colored glass. I have a 9" (22cm) cobalt blue sphere that I would love to light up with sequenced firing lights.
Would you please post or send me your schematic?

Rgbrianbow,
Thanks for the offer on the schematics but I'm not in a big hurry to work on that right now. This is the busiest time of year for me up until Christmas.