Celebrating 13 years of HOOPTRIX!
THANKS to all the hoopers who have made the tutorials over the years, HOOPTRIX would not exist without you!
If you'd like to help keep HOOPTRIX.com up & running, please donate HERE, thanks!
How I Make my LED GLOW HOOPS
Sharpies:
----------------------------------------
!OH MY GOSH! DISCOVERY ABOUT LEDS!
I discovered something WONDERFUL. I've been unhappy with the UV purple LED bulbs that are available, they always seem to be too dim. So.... I started thinking about what I could do to brighten them up a bit, especially when building a RAINBOW hoop. I thought, what if I took some white LEDs & colored them with Sharpie permanent markers?
BINGO!! a nicer brighter PURPLE LED!!! Other colors work as well.
Here's what I've found from lots of experimentation:
• white leds are available in bright white & warm white, they each look different with the colored marker on them
• word of warning--I ordered some white LEDs on ebay (Hong Kong) & the marker DID NOT stay on the bulbs. But all of the other bulbs from ebay worked, just not these particular ones for some odd reason.
• some colors look great, some not so much. purples, pinks, oranges, yellows, limes were the best.
• greens, turquoise, blues, reds not as good but useable if you don't have the regular colored LEDs.
• I tried both Sharpies & Bics. I liked the Sharpies better.
ALSO, & this is really cool too: if you try a marker color on a bulb & you don't like it, take an EXPO dry erase marker & ink over the Sharpie on the bulb, then rub off with a tissue, the Sharpie color will come off. Now you can try another color! No wasted LEDs with colors that you don't like. Genius!
The RAINBOW hoop that I made using both regular LEDs & some Sharpied LEDs is pictured below. Since I was able to use different shades of colors, the RAINBOW effect is more graduated then using blocks of colors.
Here's the breakdown of LEDs in my new RAINBOW hoop:
pink (blueish) - magenta sharpie on bright white LED
pink - regular LED
pink (reddish) - magenta sharpie on warm white LED
red - regular LED w/resistor
orange (reddish) - Prodmod LED
orange - regular LED w/resistor
orange - orange sharpie on warm white LED
yellow - regular LED w/resistor
yellow - yellow sharpie on warm white LED
lime - yellow sharpie on bright white LED
lime - lime sharpie on bright white LED
green - regular LED
green - regular LED
turquoise - Prodmod LED
blue - regular LED
blueish purple - purple sharpie on bright white LED
purple - blue sharpie on warm white LED
purple (pinkish) - purple/magenta sharpie on bright white LED
NEW RAINBOW HOOP (made with marker LEDs)
Looks even better in real life!
OLD RAINBOW HOOP (made with standard LEDs in color blocks)
----------------------------------------
E N J O Y ! ! !