LONG Quarter cylinder defuser

[Don Y]

Hi,

We have a (relatively) lot of wall space in some of our hallways. This would be excellent to capitalize on for hanging artwork.

But, lighting sucks -- the halls typically only need enough light to insure folks can safely navigate them, not the sort of lighting that you'd want to examine a piece of artwork.

I thought of mounting a low voltage LED strip along the "seams" where the ceiling meets the two opposing walls. Angle these down and *across* so the strip at the top of the left wall illuminates the *right* wall -- and vice versa.

But, a strip of bare LED's would be brutal on the eyes (even on a dimmer control). So, ideally, place them behind a "quarter round" made of diffused Lexan or similar. Like taking a tubular fluorescent lamp and cutting it in quarters along it's length.

When off, the light strip would just look like a grayish plastic molding along the top of each wall. When lit, it would be a bar of light illuminating the opposing wall.

Anything like this on the market? (note, it would need to be "custom" length as I don't want to be pasting X foot lengths together -- tacky!) Or, any materials that I could possibly use to achieve these results?

(I figure 2 in dia would be a minimum to start "quartering")

[Dean Hoffman]

A Bing search for clear plastic hose turned up these:

The tubing I see at farm supply stores isn't clear as glass. Some of it is braided or wire reinforced. It's probably about as flexible as garden hose. Would something like that work? A search for tinted plastic hose or tubing turned turned up a few things too.

[Don Y]

I don't think (flexible) "hose" would work. Even if I could use the *entire* cross section of the hose (instead of a quarter of it), it would be problematic to support it.

I figured rigid "pipe" would be required -- support it at the ends and a couple of points along its length and that should suffice (there's no *load* that it is carrying besides its own weight).

Look at the sorts of LED strips you see for under-cabinet lighting. They have very "hot" spots -- where the diodes are located. I'd need to be able to diffuse this relatively quickly (in terms of distance) yet still support high intensity -- to throw a fair bit of light across the hall.

I think I may have to resort to an acrylic and some means of "frosting" its interior. Ideally, someone would have made a "thing" like this with this goal in mind.

[Dean Hoffman]

Two sided duct tape. Tape has to be part of every project.

I don't know anything about neon lighting except seeing it. Would that be an alternative? I'm a bit too young to know about hippie (lava) lamps too, BTW.

[Don Y]

I would prefer to make a fixture onto which the "lens"/diffuser could be attached and supported. This is "living space" so appearances are important.

The "color" of the light is always important. I never realized how many different varieties of "white" there are! :-/