# Led Lights for Glass Etching



## eman09 (Jan 17, 2010)

I am currently working on projects where I etch glass into plate glass and a light is used to highlight the etchings in a way from a base. Does anyone know of a source of some moderatly priced led lights with a supplied base for glass etching?

Also does anyone do this type of work? I am interested in seeing what you know about it. Its kinda a new venture for me. Any help or advice would be appreciated.


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## JohnR66 (Jan 18, 2010)

If I follow you, It sounds like you want to light the glass from the edge and have it illuminate the etching. The problem with flat glass has the green coloration that is quite apparent when you look at the edge of flat glass. It will tint the light green and diminish its brightness. Of course if you have a source for truly clear glass, you shouldn't have an issue, but I'd think that stuff would be expensive.

Another option is acrylic. It is ultra clear and it is easy to machine with home tooling, such as edge polishing. Of course acid etching won't work, so you have to use one of the other methods to create your image.

Unless the pieces are large, small low power LEDs are fine for this job. Avoid cheap LEDs, like the ones on ebay that sell for $10 for 100 or the "better" ones, $15 for 50. None I have tried last for more than month even at low current.

Cree, Nichia and a few other make quality LEDs that last long.


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## HarryN (Jan 18, 2010)

The glass you need is called "low iron". It is a bit more, but not that expensive. Certainly plastics are more common.

There are some tricks to it - send me a pm and we can discuss off line.

Harry


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## blasterman (Jan 18, 2010)

I just finished a similiar project for a busy nightclub where I used clear rippled glass panels like this and put a mix of neutral white Rebels and blue Crees behind them. Looks pretty spectacular and lights up the entire room.

I'm now following through on the idea and building a table light using a box made of similiar glass. This is proving to be a lot more difficult than I thought even though the night club project was relatively easy.

I've thought about doing this with frosted glass, but found the green tint of conventional frosted plate glass to be annoying and distracting. Yeah...you want to invest in low iron glass. The LED part is otherwise pretty darn easy.


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## eman09 (Jan 18, 2010)

JohnR66, thats exactly what im talking about. I appreciate the tips. I saw a source awhile back that had clear glass for led lights which is probablly the low iron type that Harry's talking about. I'll post the link if I find it again.

Blasterman, your projects sound interesting and if youd be willing to share, Id love to see photos of them.


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## Capo_au (Jan 20, 2010)

I remember reading that the iron in glass is added during production to absorb UV radiation during use that would other wise bleach fabric and cause sunburn.

Rather than iron free glass you could perhaps find LED's that have a smaller out put in the green spectrum (520–570nm)? A royal blue Cree 4550 comes to mind but is of no use to you if you need pure white light. Just a thought :shrug:


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## eman09 (Jan 20, 2010)

That makes sense about the iron. Glass etching is sometimes used to block out the damaging UV rays as well, but obviously gets frosted and is primarily for creating privacy glass.

Thanks for the source. Right now it doesn't depend on the led color; im just experiementing. Im sure all colors will look neat.


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## bigterk (Apr 18, 2012)

I own a 120 watt cnc bed laser that I engrave images into and then edge light with led strips. This works well enough with 3/16" optix brand optical acrylic. I found that you can frame your projects with 1/4" aluminum channel and use RGB strips with a commonly available remote control to get whatever color you want . Multi layer projects look really cool when lit in this fashion.


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