Desk underlighting?

[SgtM]

Wiring up LED's is easy. You can run a bunch off of 5v which is exactly what you get coming off of USB. You can attach them to the desk with some of these.

LED calculator.

[Chewy_Solo]

that may work but im worried of bumping it and breaking it and such. Should i so some sort of enclosure, or as stated on the previous page, plexiglass?

[BuzzKillington]

plexi would make an awesome mount. Just get a sheet and drill a bunch of holes to hold the leds.

First thing that came to mind from the pictures was a Vegas style stage or something haha

[d_stilgar]

EL wire is going to be the easiest imo. And the prices aren't that bad.

http://worldaglow.com/rcProdmain.asp?c1=4&id=133

[Chewy_Solo]

EL wire is going to be the easiest imo. And the prices aren't that bad.

http://worldaglow.com/rcProdmain.asp?c1=4&id=133

How bright are these things In a real world situation. As in 1/2 the brightness of a Blue Cold Cathode?

[Chewy_Solo]

Anyone know how bright EL wire is?

[xmastree]

From what I've seen, not very. It's ok for making pretty patterns but not for casting light onto other things.
So it's only useful where it can be seen.

[Chewy_Solo]

From what I've seen, not very. It's ok for making pretty patterns but not for casting light onto other things.
So it's only useful where it can be seen.

Then i need to find an alternative. I like the idea of LEDs and plexi, but i really dont know how i would go about it.

[xmastree]

What are you trying to achieve? You probably don't need plexi unless the lights will be visible. If you just want to create a glow beneath the desk then strategically placed LED's on their own should be fine.
Do you want them on a switch, or on with the computer, or something else?

[BuzzKillington]

depending on where/how the tower is mounted, you could run a molex out the back or bottom and run the wires behind/under the counter top to a cathode kit.

If you want to play with leds, plexi would be the best bet in my opinion because if you shaved the tips of the leds and set them in plexi, it would be 2x the anti-directional support.. or w/e the heck you wanna refer to it as. Plus if you look at how the wood meets under the desk, there's a perfect gap to form a plexi shelf. The shelf would hold the wires up and the leds in and as I mentioned before, help spread the glow where as if you used something solid such as wood, the light would have nowhere else to go but straight (depending on how deep the leds were placed of course).

I threw something together really quick just in case people didn't wanna read. Picture should sum it all up.