Extending the Life of Strip-Light Color Media

Barbara Mangrum

There are occasions when it is nice to use really saturated colors in strip lights, yet a flat filter too close to the lamp will bubble and eventually burn through with prolonged use. Technicians repeatedly face the problem of prolonging the life of such filters, and one solution is to vacuform the flat color media into convex or arched shapes. In this form the filters are distanced from the heat source and burnthrough is no longer inevitable.

In most instances, the first step is to mold flat filters over an appropriate form. Glass roundels and hardware-cloth “roofs” like those shown below make good forms for vacuforming filters. You could, of course, use a heat gun instead of ...

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