Steve Anderson wrote:This may be an idea, anyone you know does gemstones? I few few minutes in a tumbler should take the sheen off the LEDs themselves, but then again that's maybe not what you want...
The other might be to assemble
AND TEST the whole array, then bury the LEDs up to their tops in a black potting compound. Wait for the whole block to go hard, then take a belt sander to it
Course if an LED dies you're then utterly stuffed, so perhaps it's not the best idea
I have filed and sanded LEDs down in the past though. It can be a very successful (and cheap!) way to get obscure shaped diffused LEDs (wedges, etc).
Incidentally I was pondering a similar idea the other day when I saw line-of-light mentioned. If you embedded clear flat topped LEDs in a block of clear resin cast to the appropriate prism shape and polished up it ought to be be possible to achieve a pretty high percentage of internal reflection (if you threw enough enough hard maths at the design!).
Just idle musings really but might be an interesting concept for someone better at calculating optics to pursue
Finding the right resin to minimise refraction at the LED-Prism interface could be what causes that idea to come unstuck of course.