The white dots were just painted on. Actually, probably a silkscreen. It really works well, especially when you put some reflecting tape around the edges of the piece of plexi (we were playing with 3/16" thick material) whereever there are no LEDs. We were really amazed...no one though that just adding some white dots would work. We even tried just painting the whole back white...I think that worked pretty well too, though I don't remember exactly. It's pretty easy to experiment though, just a piece of plexi with different patterns in different regions. Toss something on top to check out the evenness and perceived brightness. I'm not so surprised you are up at 7AM on boxing day fretting about this...you were up last night fretting about non demoninational holiday greetings :) Oh, and the via thing...a via is just another plated through hole. Would your board house charge you if you had a board with another 50 holes in it? Josh -- A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 08:28:15 +1300, Jinx wrote: > > The ones I've seen have a plexiglas panel under the LCD. The panel > > is side lit with LEDs, and the back side of the panel (the one farthest > > from the LCD has a pattern of small white dots > > Does, very interesting. Are the "white dots" actually painted or pits > moulded into the plastic ? I remember from my art and craft days > making cuts and holes into clear resin rods to make light come out > at the cut/hole. I was thinking some kind of pipe/guide with diffusing > features would work. Could be made from rod or sheet or some > combination, although I've got several dozen to do and don't want it > too complicated. A (simple) assembly or millable pattern is OK > > Another thought was to paint either the underside of the LCD or > any acrylic sheet with phosphorescent dye and use UV LEDs in > the hope that the lit colour would spread out that way, but I've no > proof it would > > Here's an explanation of the different types of display vis-a-vis how > the characters are seen -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist