On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 04:12:00PM +1200, Jinx wrote:
> > Looking at google results for out-gassing polycarbonate though... 
> 
> I'd imagine that acrylic would probably give off free monomer at
> temperature. You can certainly smell MMA if you saw it. Not sure
> about polycarbonate though. Have the perception (with absolutely
> no evidence to back that up) that it's more stable and/or more fully
> polymerised

According to the comparison table that another poster mentioned
polycarbonate has a max temperature of 250C that it can handle, acrylic,
85C!

> Still, if you were able to enclose LEDs in any plastic heat wouldn't
> generally be a problem. Potting in clear resin might be a little tricky
> if you used Luxeons, but the silvering could be a "feature" ;-) A tip
> I learned a long time ago when woodworking. If you make a mistake,
> make a deliberate one just like and turn them into a "feature", just as
> if you'd planned it all along

Something on my todo list is to try embedding electronics in acrylic...
See, you make acrylic set by applying 150C and something like 200psi for
a few hours. That's within lots of electronics thermal envelope. LEDs
would be very neat as if you used clear ones the shell would vanish,
making it look like they are little spots of light eminating from metal
cups.

One of my friends embedded a vacume tube in acrylic using that process.
He said it worked fine, and you couldn't see the glass envelope at all.
Make a nice nightlight for his dad.

-- 
pete@petertodd.ca http://www.petertodd.ca
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