MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - The search for the Holy Grail of reading lights continues

exvaxman · 09-30-2006, 02:30 PM

for commercial lights, about 20 years ago someone came up with a side-lit piece of clear plastic and sold it in both large for hardcovers and smaller for paperbacks. I recently saw them again and purchased one. Very similiar to one that I came up with when I had access to my father's lab at work. When EL panels were rare things, rather than the night lights I can pick up for $2 today, for a project I built a similiar item but rimmed with EL material. A little too green, but that was the only color available at the time. A couple of people at the lab loved them - but prototypes were running $600 at the time (Told ya it was early in the EL game...). Some were actually made to overlay on maps for the Pentagon - I got credit for them but no pay. (EL material was the backlight for the Frankin Ebookman (very poor implimentation) and the Sony Clie's). So - what actually could be done today is a clear touch screen with EL material (rather than spotted LEDs) surrounding the panel on top of the E-ink display.

09-30-2006, 02:30 PM	#2
exvaxman Connoisseur Posts: 66 Karma: 38 Join Date: Mar 2006	my favorite solution for commercial lights, about 20 years ago someone came up with a side-lit piece of clear plastic and sold it in both large for hardcovers and smaller for paperbacks. I recently saw them again and purchased one. Very similiar to one that I came up with when I had access to my father's lab at work. When EL panels were rare things, rather than the night lights I can pick up for $2 today, for a project I built a similiar item but rimmed with EL material. A little too green, but that was the only color available at the time. A couple of people at the lab loved them - but prototypes were running $600 at the time (Told ya it was early in the EL game...). Some were actually made to overlay on maps for the Pentagon - I got credit for them but no pay. (EL material was the backlight for the Frankin Ebookman (very poor implimentation) and the Sony Clie's). So - what actually could be done today is a clear touch screen with EL material (rather than spotted LEDs) surrounding the panel on top of the E-ink display.