Leaderboard

Here we go with a short test of ALBS Waldorf knobs on illuminated Bourns encoders. I found it quite hard to take pictures which show how the knobs look in reality, as the illumination seems to get enhanced on the dark and reduced on the bright pictures. Anyways, here we go with three knob samples transparent blue, clear and milky from left to right/ top to bottom in different lighting conditions. I use the green illuminated Bourns encoders at 1.9V with 14mA. The current could be enhanced to max. 20mA, but suits for the comparison. As you can see, blue doesn't work very well with the green LED, so it's more about clear vs. The new milky option. The clear knob obbiously shines a bit brighter and produces a brighter reflection on the white surface the knobs are on. From the side, it has the interesting inside view with a kind of lens effect, as people who use them know it from theyr own illumination work. The milky knob however has much more even light filling on both sides, the top and the side. Unfortunately, the brightness noticeably decreases down the side from top to bottom. As mentioned, the green illumination on the photos looks a bit brighter in dark lighting conditions and a bit dimmer in bright lighting conditions compared to real life. My subjective impression is, that both, milky and clear knob look fantastic in no light and dim light conditions. With bright surrounding light, the milky still looks fantastic from the top but looses the effect a bit on the side. I am looking forward to receive some SMD LEDs and do another comparison. ...followup: The three LEDs where killed seconds after this post has been published by trying to max out the current with a potentiometer...leads shorted, bang. Now I have only 13 left for my MB6582, grrrr :-(