Diffraction Film Box With Changeable LED Source

This was just a test of an idea I had. I long time back I bought an electronic candle from a dollar store, and the body of it was a sheet of plastic diffraction grating with a color-changing LED inside it.

I opened up the body and saved the bottom with the LED for another project. I then cut it along the seam line to make a flat sheet.

Step 1: Box Construction

The box is a simple construction: It is 4 inches high, 4 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches deep.

The front is a single large piece of the grid, which is hot-glued to the inside of the box. The back has a mounting ring-made of posterboard-glued to the center of the back: Inside it I cut out a square and hot glued a smaller piece of grid inside the box as well. I did this because I had experimented with the grid and discovered that two sections of grid spread out the light best.

Step 2: Light Sources

The light sources are commercially made LED Tealights, as they are called. One is the flickering yellow LED and the other is a color-changing LED. I made the mounting ring to hold these tealights in place.

Step 3: The Results

These are the results: The first two are of the flickering LED, and the other four are of the color changing LED. In darkness or semi-darkness it looks good.

Step 4: