Mono Directional LEDs / Coloured Lasers

Hi,
Starting a little project and I needed some help. Searched around google but its all rubbish now but this forum popped up a few times so I thought I would abuse your clever minds while I'm here 😀!

What I want to do is a bit hard to explain so hang on 😀! I want to have a device(s) that can project a straight line that can have different colours in it. This would be done by flashing the light extremefast (100 + times a second) with the same pattern in. Heres an example:

=> green-red-blue-blue-blue-green-red-blue-green-red

So it would repeat that pattern by doing the sequence, then repeating it 100 times a second (random number, aparently light only needs to be repeated 60 times a second since thats the semi max we can notice it e.g. your monitor refresh rate) so it looks like a bar of colour.

Optical electronics is really new to me so I have been brainstorming a few ideas. LEDs I believe are out since the colour would spread wouldnt it? I cant 'direct' a LED like you can a laser, or can you?? Special lasers are what Im looking for but are there any lasers that you can alter the colour instantly? Idealy I want all colours of the spectrum!

Anyone have a clue? Some ideas would be awesome 😀!

Thanks for reading,
Tom

Replies

  • silverscorpion
    silverscorpion
    Well, LED's do spread, but I think they can be used nevertheless.. What's your application? Specify more clearly..

    For just display purposes, you can maybe use a pinhole in front of an LED and restrict its spreading. I think there are not many colored lasers around. Also, you can generate any color using just three led's, red, blue and green. Place all 3 led's nearby, cover them up with a transparent paper and power them up. Change the voltage given to each led and the output color changes. Simple...
  • Tomo8281
    Tomo8281
    Thanks for the advice.

    Its just a wierd project Im doing in my spare time. What I want to do is put lots of this LEDs in a column and creat a 'image' using one LED as one line of colour.

    So it'll look like this kinda.

    ---------------
    |LED|xxxoxxox|
    |LED|xxxxxxxx|
    |LED|xxxxxbxx|
    |LED|xxoxxxxo|
    |LED|xxxoooxx|
    ---------------

    Excuse my poor graphics skills, but that is meant to be a smiley face 😀! This is why I need the LEDs to be directional, i dont want the light to spread into the over rows. You can get LEDs that display Full colours which is nearly every in the spectrum I believe. I didnt think I would be able to do it with lasers so thanks for confirming that!

    Thanks,
    Tom

    silverscorpion
    Well, LED's do spread, but I think they can be used nevertheless.. What's your application? Specify more clearly..

    For just display purposes, you can maybe use a pinhole in front of an LED and restrict its spreading. I think there are not many colored lasers around. Also, you can generate any color using just three led's, red, blue and green. Place all 3 led's nearby, cover them up with a transparent paper and power them up. Change the voltage given to each led and the output color changes. Simple...

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