A diifferent LED

[Bob Engelhardt]

LCD TVs and monitors require a back light for the illumination. At first they used tiny fluorescent tubes, but newer ones use LEDs. I found a more recent one at the dump (cracked screen) and tore it apart for the LED light.

The light is amazingly diffuse - not just a matte screen, but special lens on the LEDs, a special reflector, and screen.

Unfortunately, it's pretty low powered - about 14w, spread over a 25" screen. I'm bummed - it's really too weak for the shop, I suppose I could use it for my desk.

[PStechPaul]

It would be good for viewing X-ray or MRI films, or 35mm slides.

[mattthemuppet]

that would be a nice light to have when you wanted to minimise shadows. I've replaced a couple of laptop screens and the ones I've taken apart (one Mac and one Acer) have the LED strips along the edge firing in, then a prismatic/ diffuser film to project that light out through the screen. Still, at least you should be guaranteed a decent CRI

[Paul Alciatore]

An "under the cabinet" light?

[lakeside53]

Get 9 more and make an illuminated ceiling!

[BCRider]

I'm not really surprised to read about your findings. If it were bright enough to use as task lighting we'd need to wear sunglasses to read our laptop screens.....

Paul, your idea of using it as a light table for viewing old slides is freakin' BRILLIANT.... er.... pun not really intended but I'll use it that way anyway..

[alanganes]

I've always thought it was pretty cool how evenly the light on these can be distributed from a single (or just a few) LED's. Some years back I had some equipment at my job that has a small 2"x6" LCD matrix display that had cold cathode fluorescent backlights. As the units were old the CF lights started failing, and as they were old enough that there were no replacements to be had, I started replacing the CF tubes with LED's. Getting the lighting even with a couple of small white LED's on that small screen was way more challenging than I figured it would be. They had to be in the right spots and the right relative brightness for the display to not either be washed out or too dim. Spent a fair amount of time messing around to get that right.

A couple of those that you have might make a great light dome for photographing small stuff (like your metalworking projects...) with nice even lighting and no shadows. Or as was already suggested, some under cabinet or other accent lighting. It's fun to dissect stuff and see what you end up with.

[boslab]

I use one for tracing, aka light box,
Mark

[elf]

Macro photographers use them for the diffuse lighting.