Idea

A while ago I ripped apart an old LED LCD TV to see what parts could be salvaged. The 47" LG weighed a ton and it was time for it to be replaced with something modern. Out of the rubble I was able to grab multiple diffusion layers and some speakers - which will be used in a later project.

After grabbing a desk, 4k monitor, and building a gaming PC out of spare parts, my Covid WFH safespace was quickly adopting a lot of lighting. The contrast of all the various LEDs looks cool in here when it's dark and I'm hiding from the evils of patriarchy and facism. However, there was one area in the back corner that didn't get enough light...

 

Build

This light was built using two addressable strips of LEDs, a few buttons, the previously mentioned TV diffuser panels, wire wrap, and some hot glue. I nailed down the LEDs to a thick plastic backing (also salvaged from the TV) and used some nerd magic to make them all blue at the press of a button. If you press the button a few more times, they'll cycle through some standard colors like red, green, and purple.

After the lighting was good to go, I folded the diffuser panels over the lights and made sure there was a gap from one layer to the next. Light diffusion only gets better with space and additional material. This part is tricky and was inevitably off-center when complete. The light was also escaping from the top and bottom and gave it a very unfinished look.

This is where Fusion 360 came in. I quickly designed and printed top and bottom caps out of white PETg and hot glued them into place. Now it looks slick and I'm proud to have it light up the corner of our panic room.