making a desk..what do you think?

[RangerJoe]

me and my friend decided to make a computer desk today. plans are as such

normal size i guess, should be about 5 feet long on one side, and have a 3-4 foot angle on it..like a big L....going to cover the top in a sheet of aluminum..then cover that in lucite (acrylic, some kind of thin plastic) then, i want to make it so the platic top glows, so i will be putting LED's all around the edges. my question is...

is there an easy way to make it all glow? im guessing a normal LED wont shine that much, and i will have to put some in the middle of the table....but is there a way to avoid this? ill try and make up some drawings of what exactly i mean tomorrow, but what do you all think of the idea?

im using a boring leather topped table right now, it gets pretty dirty, and you cant put drinks on it (make nasty rings)

see......

any ideas would be appreciated. will keep you all posted

RangerJoe

 

[cryogen97]

you'd be supprised with how much light a bank of LEDs will make. They flow through plexi almost unimpeded. I've done a bit of experimenting with this, but nothing heavy. The front door of my cheiftec case is actually side lit plexi that's been roughed up and painted black behind it. The black sucks up a lot of the light, but it looks wicked cool at night. Regular plexi does an amazing job of spreading LED light and even reflects it internally. Worth a go at the very least. I thought of running some kind of reflective material around the edges so that light would be bounced back into the middle, but didn't have anything handy.

 

[RangerJoe]

where can i get sheets of plexi that big? i dont know if lowes or home depot or any of those places have it that big

 

[cryogen97]

I bet you can order it from a glass shop. You can get custom dimensions. On the big pieces they can actually be fairly reasonable with the price.

 

[IFMU]

Nice idea.
I know the Lowes close to me carries peices that should work. Im not totally positive, but Im pretty sure?! Ive seen some rather large pieces there.

 

[pik4chu]

home depot had a sheet of 3 feet X 6 feet of plexi, might work.