I think its the viewing angle giving you problems. You probably want the narrowest angle to light it up. I remember when I was buying at radio shack they had like 10 degress 30 degrees of viewing etc.
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L.E.D. fretlines?
- Thread starter Reticle
- Start date
The viewing angle doesn't matter (at least in that respect) since the light is being carried to the fretmarkers through fiber optic cable.
Why would you want him to sew tiny French uniforms???
You guys are all wet- it means to store frozen tapioca upstairs.
no foolin, my dad and I were talking about this next week and i reasoned to do it on my first upcoming build. i guess the needed to use these things in his machine shop for some project and he thought it would be cool. when I get started i will post some stuff here
i have been following this thread and giving it some thought- an LED is a bulb, so it may not be the best option: it works as a fret dot or marker, but not a fretline. i think fiber-optics would be more functional.
I am not trying to use the L.E.D. as the fret line, I have one with fiber optic cable running from it to a piece of opaque plexiglass that is in the fret slot. The original idea was to use side glow fiber optic strand in the slot but it can not make the bend from running straight down the neck the into the fret slot.
Can you round down the top edge of the fret slot, to make the corner more gradual? You'd lose the light in that top edge, but sacrifices are to be made. I still think this is a worthwhile venture.
I just spent the last few hours at work reading over this thread, and an idea I had was to have an entire sheet under the fretboard, like has been mentioned, and have plexi or some other translucent material jutting forward to make the frets, except that my understanding of the mention was for the frets to come out looking like this:
|__|__|__|_|_|_|_|
as viewed from the side, but light doesn't like the turn at 90 degree angles, so I was thinking, what if you made the plexi hit at an angle, so where the fret line connects to the base, where the light is coming through, would not be where the fret shows on the fretboard, so viewed from the side, would look something like this:
\__\__\__\__\_\_\_\_\ <--- lightsource.
I'm not sure if I'm making sense, and I understand the difficulty in getting the intonation correct, but I think it might make the best choice for getting a sufficient amount of light to the fretboard.
Again, I don't know if it'll bring light all the way down to the first frets, but what light makes it that far down should be brought evenly to the surface.
Sorry for reviving a thread. I thought it could use some juice. Just interested if anything ever came of this.
I just spent the last few hours at work reading over this thread, and an idea I had was to have an entire sheet under the fretboard, like has been mentioned, and have plexi or some other translucent material jutting forward to make the frets, except that my understanding of the mention was for the frets to come out looking like this:
|__|__|__|_|_|_|_|
as viewed from the side, but light doesn't like the turn at 90 degree angles, so I was thinking, what if you made the plexi hit at an angle, so where the fret line connects to the base, where the light is coming through, would not be where the fret shows on the fretboard, so viewed from the side, would look something like this:
\__\__\__\__\_\_\_\_\ <--- lightsource.
I'm not sure if I'm making sense, and I understand the difficulty in getting the intonation correct, but I think it might make the best choice for getting a sufficient amount of light to the fretboard.
Again, I don't know if it'll bring light all the way down to the first frets, but what light makes it that far down should be brought evenly to the surface.
Sorry for reviving a thread. I thought it could use some juice. Just interested if anything ever came of this.
