Plastruct clear rod work with LEDS for heads?


NYSW F45

NYSW F45

Active Member
I got a package of Plastruct clear rod that i want to thin out enough to fit in the opening of some athearn loco's and then put those micro led's behind the clear rod. Will this rod work with the leds and project the light out from behind the shell?
 
Yes. It's a better idea to cut the rod off flush with the inside of the shell though, and then glue the surface mount LEDs behind the rod with canopy glue or something that dries clear. Make sure to heat the end of the rod to turn it into a lens. Or, if you want to use a larger LED, take a 5MM, take the rounded lens off, file it flat, then cement it to the flat end of the plastic rods. If you use Faller Expert Styrene Cement, it welds the LED to the plastic and creates an optical surface between them so that you don't scatter any of the light.
 
Power drill with the LED in it where the bit goes = my ghetto rigged lathe :D
 
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if you had a consistant source of heat like a heated metal plate or something like that where you can roll it out to make it thinner.
 
kjd said:
Can you heat and stretch it?
Click to expand...

No comment :D

NYSW F45 said:
if you had a consistant source of heat like a heated metal plate or something like that where you can roll it out to make it thinner.
Click to expand...

Whoa!..... Any experience with this approach?

I like the *theory*, but suspect the wheels are gonna fall off before you get it thinner...... But I'd love to be proved wrong here ;)

Cheers,
Ian
 
I was thinking a heat gun or embossing gun. We do this all the time at work. I work at a stop motion movie studio and the "look" of the current movie has no parallel lines which makes building stuff a pain. I've used or seen heat used to shape acrylic rods from about 1/16 to about 1 inch.
 
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