Display case with unique Background Lighting

I will demonstrate one way to "illuminate" something in a deep display case, while preserving it's integrity and keeping it as safe and preserved as possible.. 

Step 1 Planning, calculating Resistor values & arrays

Although one can (and should, at least a few times) use Ohm's law (one of the pictures below) to calculate resister values for LED's it can get a bit "odd" if parallel lines are used...warning, ALWAYS use segments of parallels, each with it's own resistor.   For my purposes here, because of some unknowns and the complexity of the number of LED's and types I was using, I decided to use THIS calculator.

With the calculator you will still need to know
#1:Source voltage 
#2: diode forward voltage 
#3: diode forward current (mA) 
and finally #4: the number of LEDs in your array.

The calculator will give you several choices to pick from many times.

Comments

[duggerpato]

Does your profile description say you're older than 21? A little binary reference for part and full time geeks out there? ;)

[Goodhart]

Yes it does :-) and yes it is :-)

[ChrysN]

Cool case! That's a great T-shirt I can see why you want to preserve it.

[Goodhart]

Thank you. I kind of wish I could have diffused the light a little better though.

[iceng]

Working and looks good.
I await to see the wonderous colored art you place in to the display.

A

[Goodhart]

Thank you, actually I built it FOR that t-shirt. The glass keeps out short wave UV (I think) and so protects the shirt from fading/yellowing; and yet, if i have a proper combo of lights I can still photograph it or even view it (although the IR LEDs only allow for picture taking admittedly).

You see, that particular shirt means a WHOLE LOT to me.  It was sent to me as I recovered from double bypass surgery nearly 3 years ago. See the published thread here....

I wore it twice but decided wearing (and washing) it would ruin it....so now I want to display it. :-)

[iceng]

Now I remember you did type so.
T-shirt will do very well under UV.

[Goodhart]

Especially a nice cotton one like this one. It is just that some of the LED's seem to make some areas TOO bright, while other areas suffer....I need a better way to direct / diffuse the light.