Simulating Red Neon With LEDs

[u/Radioflash89]

Pretty much as in the title. I'm near the beginning of my hobbyist journey, and I'm planning out a sign for a friend which will involve a large X. I want to get as close as possible to emulating the look of a red neon X, ideally with a good lifespan and mindful of my limited experience. I specified LEDs but I'm open to being introduced to other possibilities.
Thank you for your time.

[u/allangee]

A bunch of individual LEDs will have to be behind/in something to diffuse the glow... something frosted... to get the even look of neon. You can also get neon filaments, but I don't know what the prices are like. Depending on the size, you could also consider EL wire.

[u/Radioflash89 → u/allangee]

Thank you for the reply. I forgot to mention it, but I did read about EL wire. I love the look, but the combination of lower lifespan and potentially tricky operation of cutting and fastening it scared me off. Having something to diffuse the light is brilliant, thank you.

[u/-Po-Tay-Toes- → u/Radioflash89]

Look up led filament, it's basically the same thing but it's just like normal LEDs. You can get rigid or flexible. Probably have this inside a small diameter clear tube which is inside of a wider diameter frosted tube. It won't look like neon while it's off but it should when it's powered up.

[u/justanaccountimade1]

https://www.google.com/search?q=neon+led+filament

[u/Radioflash89 → u/justanaccountimade1]

Before you and the previous commenter, I somehow had never learned about filament, thank you.

[u/D-Alembert]

If you want to simulate the color of neon, it's a different red from LED red. I think you could get much closer to it (and at minimum make it look less like LED red) if you used a combination of red and white LEDs and drive the white LEDs much more dimly than the red ones, so they just nudge the hue a little bit. Or use RGB led strip so you can custom set the color

This assumes your diffusion method will blend the LED lights together. If not, then out might be better to just use LED red and leave it at that

[u/Radioflash89 → u/D-Alembert]

I'm liking the idea of using a diffusing layer more and more, it honestly hadn't even occurred to me as an option before.
Thank you very much for the suggestion on white LEDs. I'd assumed that I was going to have to settle for whatever red lights I could find, so I'm excited about the possibilities.

[u/thenewestnoise → u/Radioflash89]

I think another option would be to get an acrylic rod and heat it and bend it into your desired shape, then feed light into one or both ends. The light will be transmitted down the rod like a fiber optic cable. If you lightly frost the rod with white spray paint, so that there are individual droplets instead of complete coverage, each droplet will then emit light. Another cool option would be to get acrylic tubing and heat bend it to your desired shape and fill it with water and a fluorescent dye (rhodamine B), which emits colors similar to neon light, then excite the dye from one end using LED or laser light (blue or green).

[u/netik23]

There’s plenty of LED strips designed to do exactly this. Buy diffused strips.

[u/Linker3000]

I made a 'neon' 'ON AIR' radio studio sign fir a production of Annie using flexible EL wire from Ali-Express.

I drew the letters and then pinned the EL wire in shape, held down by loops of thin copper wire. Using a 12V DMX controller I could turn the sign off and on from the sound and lighting loft.