1/2" ID Orange Tubing or Coolant

[Konrad]

Transparent chunks look awesome when illuminated by coloured LEDs. A little abrasive on the edge planes can help distribute the light more evenly.

[Fuganater]

Transparent chunks look awesome when illuminated by coloured LEDs. A little abrasive on the edge planes can help distribute the light more evenly.

Sorry but I have no idea what you are talkig about...

[xr4man]

i think he's talking about illuminating the blocks with leds and sanding the edges to get a nice deep light distribution on the edges.

i think it's much easier said than done though.

[Konrad]

Google image search "LED acrylic" to see many examples of what I mean. Actually, it's not very hard at all ... lexan, plexi, styrene, and similar transparent plastics (and LED/lighting effects of same) are popular and much modding advice exists for working with these materials.

In short, these plastics are somewhat like glass, can generally be worked with the same sorts of cutting/drilling/tapping tools you'd use on wood or aluminum, can be curved or bent and have edges rounded through careful application of torch or heat gun ... they are fairly heavy/dense, their surfaces scratch easily (and are difficult to polish clean again), and they tend to crack around corners and holes. They can crack and shatter under impact/drop/stress conditions much like glass would. These disadvantages are not really significant if the plastics are internally mounted (as with some "subtle" TRON-style lighting props or in Merc Stealth keyboard illumination, for example), but these disadvantages can be a worrisome problem if the machine moves around a lot between sites (LAN party rig or whatever).

These plastics can be salvaged and reworked from all sorts of junk (which is, as often as not, thrown away simply because the plastic enclosure itself has somehow been damaged), and a few strategically placed illuminated scraps can go a really long way into pimping up a mod's appearance. I've achieved very pleasing results framing small PCBs, LCD panels, and knobs/buttons/switches with illuminated plastic strips cut from broken CD jewel cases, although thicker chunkier plastic blocks are far more dramatic. CD jewel cases, with busted "hinge" bits, zero cost item I tend to throw away. Large sheets of it can be moderately costly, partly because of fragile transport precautions. Care must be taken to avoid exposing these plastics to certain solvents, fumes, and cleaning agents which might haze or craze or otherwise deteriorate them.