lighting a visor or glasses

Slide · Post by **Slide** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:11 pm

a friend of mine [who is hopeless when it comes to building anything] has asked me to look into this for him [and to build it for him if i find it's possible].

he's looking to get this type of glowing eye effect either in a pair of goggles or as a whole-face visor for his costume for this upcomming halloween [it's a long way off, but we may aswell start asap, you know?].

How would i go about this?

use a formation of LEDs? is there something else i can use? should i tint the goggles/visor? help!

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:22 pm

Electroluminescent wire is probably how it would be done in the movies. It may be dangerous as there are high voltages involved in electroluminescent wire.

It would be kinda hard to kill yourself but with it so close to your eyes I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with having it on. I got a shock off the power supply for one of our models, since it was powered and I was trying to plug in the extension to the glow wire, it was just a shock and that's all maybe the same as a gag buzzer.

tetsujin · Post by **tetsujin** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:27 pm

I'd like to recommend asking this question on cosplay forums, too - people here are very knowledgable about a wide variety of things, but for this particular application, cosplayers may have something worthwhile to add to the discussion.

Personally, I'd just use LEDs - the main problem in my mind is creating the uniform glow and still being able to see out of the thing.

Scott Hasty · Post by **Scott Hasty** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:41 pm

Pack the goggles with Fiberfil and backlight an LED behind (the Fiberfil scatters the light for a soft glow).

Then you have the problem with trying to see, unless you make the goggles sit just above eye-slits for proper vision.

Scottie

Slide · Post by **Slide** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:31 am

he's leaning towards the idea of a visor as opposed to goggles [future military commando costume]... kinda like the helmets seen in roughnecks, but he'd like a blue or red glow... so this won't be right up to the face, nor will we require a uniform "Flashlight Eyes" effect...

where would one come across this EL wire, and is it expensive?

Matt2893 · Post by **Matt2893** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:23 am

I saw that effect on BSG this week and was wondering how much the glare from the light inside the helmet effected the ability to see out of the faceshield. Then I remembered, it's only a tv show, and they need to light the faces of the actors so we, the audience, can tell the characters apart. In reality, they wouldn't want lights inside the helmet at all. But it is a cool effect.

Chacal · Post by **Chacal** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:48 pm

If I had to do it, I'd try to get surface-mount LEDs and arrange them as a "line", closely packed, so the glow of each individual LED would merge into an overall glow. Second, if your friend wants to see out, I would suggest he wears tinted contact lenses (if he goes for the blue LEDs, use red tinted lenses, if red LEDs, blue-tinted lenses â€“ of course if there is such a creature as tinted contacts). This way, the glow from the helmet/visor/goggles will not be visible, as it will be totally cut by the contacts. To get a soft glow the individual LEDs should be lit with low power (below their rated maximum), so batteries should last longer.

Slide · Post by **Slide** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:28 pm

Chacal, that's a good idea about the surface-mount LEDs...

he has some HUD things he wants me to paint on the helmet... and i'm wondering, would Decals be a better idea?

i mean, i can paint the HUD with clear paints , but theres numbers and things that i'd never be able to get that small... would it work? or would it just muck-up the plastic visor?

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:48 pm

They would be sensitive to being scraped or smudged off, decals that is.

You might try printing it on some of the clear inkjet sticker stuff, that way you can replace it as need be, not sure how clear the ink would be.

The best solution would be to find someone who can print it on clear vinyl. That sutff sticks to glass by static/vacuum cling, so you can remove it clean the screen and reuse the same piece. You know the material I'm talking about? I have some examples of this stuff at home. The last parking sticker I had to get was thin vinyl (from the city of Palatine, IL).

en'til Zog · Post by **en'til Zog** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:04 pm

Here's another idea - make the face plate / HUD from 1/8th plexiglas/acrylic and edgelight it with LEDs. Etch reticles, grids, etc. in the surface of the plex and the LEDs will make the etcked lines 'glow'.

Chacal · Post by **Chacal** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:18 pm

Or... if you get hold of some "glow-in-the-dark" paint, you can draw the lines inside the visor (a ruling pen would be great for that) and then add a few UV LEDs to the inside of the helmet, so that you have a guaranteed glow. There are even some paints that will only glow when hit by UV, so they would only show when the lights are on.

United Nuclear has nice glow-in-the-dark paints, just scroll down the page.

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:30 pm

Careful with the UV LEDs, they state that if you look at them un protected you can expect eye damage, even blindness. I wonder how serious that is, and how much is just them covering their a$$.

BTW nice idea Zog witht he etched lines. I want to try this now with an old face shield that the head strap has broken on.

Madman Lighting · Post by **Madman Lighting** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:58 pm

I like Zog's idea. It even sounds like it would work.

Friend of mine used blue EL wire to make a light saber once, it worked but it needed a high voltage generator module to drive the EL wire and it wasnt that bright. A simple ring of surface mount LEDs powered by batteries would be easier and probably safer to wear.

-John C.

jwrjr · Post by **jwrjr** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:55 pm

If you must use UV leds, there is a way to be safe. Plain, ordinary glass blocks short wave UV. Plastic lenses certainly will not unless they are UV coated (in which case, I couldn't say). How do I know? Because you use short wave UV to erase the old eprom chips.

macfrank · Post by **macfrank** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:13 am

jwrjr wrote:If you must use UV leds, there is a way to be safe. Plain, ordinary glass blocks short wave UV. Plastic lenses certainly will not unless they are UV coated (in which case, I couldn't say). How do I know? Because you use short wave UV to erase the old eprom chips.

It's actually the opposite; UV can go through glass. Polycarbonate or acrylic lenses are very good at blocking UV light.

UV LEDs are just not safe to work with, especially near the eye.

Zog's idea of scratching a reticle pattern into the plastic and side illuminating with an LED will work; illuminated eyepiece reticles used in Astronomy are just that. I've made a few and they work well. If you're going to have a lot of lines, you may want to place the LEDs 90 degrees apart, to keep the brightness of the lines even.

Frank

Slide · Post by **Slide** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:38 pm

ya.. engraved lines would be great, but THIS is the visor we intend on using... because i can get a "2 replacement visor set" for $30 through some connections at the local sporting goods store... and i don't think it'd be easy to carve something detailed into such compound curves....

which is why i'm wondering about decals, and just back lighting the visor...

Madman Lighting · Post by **Madman Lighting** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:02 pm

Neat Batman shades.

macfrank · Post by **macfrank** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:58 pm

Slide wrote:
which is why i'm wondering about decals, and just back lighting the visor...

You could use monofilament and glue it with watchmaker (or white) glue to the visor, then illuminate the pattern from the sides and top - basically the reverse of etching a pattern.

It looks like there's enough room to illuminate a decal from the sides or top as well.