I’m curious what everybody uses for diffusers on their led strips. I’m planning to make a belt for bm out of 60pixel/m WS2812s and I’m guessing that will be just too darn bright without some diffusion. I’m thinking about getting some white translucent polyethylene (http://amzn.to/1cpXzhY), nylon (http://amzn.to/16tKJer) or silicone (http://bit.ly/1847CUW) tubing to try out. Anyone have thoughts on these or other diffusion options?
The biggest challenge I’ve hit with (some kinds of) tubing like that is the interior friction, particularly if the LED strip has a waterproof coating – basically it can be a big PITA to get the strip threaded through any tube that isn’t already smooth or slick inside. (I presume lube might help, and if you experiment, please do share with the class.)
I’ve been very happy with the ease of installation, flexibility, price, and availability of “split loom wire ducting” – also known as cable organizers, e.g., http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RIMPCC/ It’s available in various lengths and diameters. It’s wickedly easy to get the strip in (and out, if needed). So far I’ve only used white, but I’m going to order some ‘translucent clear’ from here http://www.electriduct.com/Colored-Wire-Loom-By-The-Foot.html and see how that looks, too. You can (sort of) see how it looks as a diffuser in this video, but as always, this stuff is hard to shoot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDwOFgMWFig
Overall, I’ve been really happy with the way an LED strip looks in a white translucent tube. Curious to hear what you decide to try, and how it turns out!
3mm and 5mm frosted acrylic, but you need to put the leds (especially single point ones) the right distance away. too close you see the point, too far and the spread isnt even (around 5-6cm for 3mm)
Polyethelyne tubing works really well, especially to make a 1 sided strip of LEDs “almost” like a 2 sided strip. The sharkbite tubes from home depot work great, the 1/2" OD fits well inside 1/2" ID plexi glass, giving it some strength. Also, acetone (the real thing, not nail polish remover) will take the ink off the polyethelyne tubing lickety split.
Awesome, thanks for the tips!
@Mark_Kriegsman Your xmas video looks pretty smoothly diffused for such a short distance. Very interested to try some of that split loom tubing.
@Matt_Starbuck Glad to hear the polyethelene works for this task. Interesting idea about the plexiglass tubing. That would work perfectly for another purpose I have in mind that needs some structural integrity. Where did you get the plexiglass?
If this is for burning man, White fur works ridiculously well. I’m on LED Fur garment/project #5 right now and I’m consistently surprised on how all the animations still look like magic.
@Chris_Hoban can you post some finished shots? Just so I can say hi when I see you from 1500 ft away on playa 
I should probably try to take some tonight! I’m still working on the fur vest and pants, but I have 2 fur gauntlets, fur tie, and fur hat I could document
Any suggestions for a diffuser material that is flat instead of a tube? I too have a belt. Looks great with just individual pixels, but would look great diffused.
@Mark_Kriegsman Here’s a report back on my findings. This application was for a belt for burning man so I wanted it to be pretty strong and resistant to unwanted bending and I ended up going with stiff tubing instead of the split loom kind. I tried out the sharkbite from Home Depot that @Matt_Starbuck recommended which is definitely rigid! Too much so for my application; I couldn’t adjust the bend diameter at all. I ended finding another kind at Lowe’s off the rack that worked decently. It was translucent 3/8" I.D. which was just wide enough to get the strip in there with no sheath and a fair bit of flattening of the tube. The translucence on that stuff looked pretty good; it softened the brightness a bit but could have been a bit more opaque in retrospect.
I’d like to try the split loom tubing for another, larger (~30’) installation. Is that Amazon link you sent your favorite brand? I’d imagine the translucence of the white varies a lot from brand to brand.
Thanks for the report, Greg.
As for split loom tubing, I’ve actually found different brands and batches to be largely similar, but I’ve only bought a few batches, from a few vendors, so that might be a sampling error.
I recently bought some split loom tubing (aka split wire loom aka split wiring loom aka split loom ducting) from these folks http://www.electriduct.com/Colored-Wire-Loom-By-The-Spool.html, both “white” and “clear”. I’ll see if I can post pictures of how they each look in the next couple of days; the white pretty much hides individual pixels, the ‘clear’ is actually nicely foggy, but does show the individual pixels.
Yeah, if your goal is bent shapes, the coiled PEX tubing is probably what you want. If you want straight, the straight sharkbite PEX is what you want. I’ve also found that pex-inside-polycarb looks pretty cool (like white apple iDevice cool) and adds some durability to the polycarb. Polycarb/lexan has a bit of bend to it but it’s not meant to take extremes, the pex on the inside is the opposite, it’s meant to be bent over and over during installation.