Ping pong ball LED diffuser

Note to self: ping pong balls make nice LED diffusers.

I tried sitting the ball on top of an LED, that did work but the brightness was greatly reduced. Next I tried drilling a small hole, just big enough for the LED. This works very well. There is a noticeable bright spot on the ball but in general the entire ball lights up well.

A reader of the uC Hobby Blog writes:

Try stuffing the ball with crushed paper napkins(the cheaper you can get), they get rid of the “halo” on top of the ball.

Link (Via MAKE)

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MadMolecule

Is there any problem with heat buildup?
adrianv

i did something similar a few months ago. i used white on the tip of the LED to diffuse the bright spot.

http://flickr.com/photos/adrianv/2067330937/
Takuan

depends on the LED, what’s the wattage?
Jeff

There will be no heat issues. They do make these things for holidays.
iamh2o

Someone at Burning Man has brought out a large installation of LED’s diffused by ping pong balls, and controlled to create the most amazing effects.

This set up is a circle, where columns of LED’s make up the radii of the circle. Video does no justice, but gives an idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqexlHt1Mw0
misterchinaski

ping pong balls look like hot air balloonz.
Takuan

sand the top of the LED
Buttermaker

If you want to save yourself some time and effort…
Can’t find them on their website, but Ikea has entire frickin’ chandeliers make out of LEDs in ping pong-like balls. They have strings of them to (like xmas lights).
digitaltribes

LED Ping Pong Porn from the 23C3.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaltribes/sets/72157594470327257/
Rob Cockerham

Will this help or harm the effectiveness of my CCD camera-masking UV LED necklace?
Takuan

get back on that cross!
minimalniemand

I see an array of 1920 x 1080 ping pong balls, each with a red, green and blue LED in it giving me a 76,8 meter wide and 43,2 meter high FullHD Display.
JPen

Huge 3D display made from LED illuminated ping pong balls. I work with the chap who designed this for Zurich’s main train station.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIIp2wFGVdw
Julian Bond

Ping-Pong throwies?
celestialcereal

i bought some lights at ikea that are basically the same thing, just all strung together.

http://flickr.com/photos/katetomlinson/2151286584/
karlklar

I did basically the same, but with plastic fishes (including the battery inside the fish)

http://www.karlklar.at/lichtfischen/lang/en/

=)
gigarizel

There have been some killer burningman installations using the same idea over the last 3 or 4 years. One of the coolest was the cubatron! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqexlHt1Mw0
gigarizel

here is a better cubatron link http://www.nw.com/nw/projects/brc/
mr crunky

here’s a nice big photo i took of cubatron in ’06.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/onetinyatom/1436166781/sizes/l/in/set-72157602143412224/
Jack Caesar

Those pictures can only make me think of The Invisibles.

Barbelith is go.
Plurr

I second the sanding, if you take the round tip off of the LED it really helps disperse the light off the tip less directly.
niro5

Finally, a way to diffuse my LEDs AND use my Captain Kangaroo-esque collection of ping-pong balls.