Some kind of plastic needed

[martin54]

Composite board has a thin aluminium skin with a plastic centre. OK it's a lot more expensive than say far eastern ply but the whole thing would be lighter & easier to move about, it's already powder coated so no need to paint & comes in about 6 different colours plus it's pretty easy to cut so your woodworking guy could still manufacture it for you. Normal woodworking tools will be ok as long as any saws are fine toothed, for small jobs I use one of those throw away laminate saws that joiners use & the V groove I do with a normal hand help router.
Not the cheapest way to do it but would look good & last for years.

[birchy]

Most of the old clock radios and such like used (brown/green) tinted acrylic to reduce the glare.

[Musht]

With Birchy, it`s a contrast rather than diffusion problem, dark tint will work better than a frost.

Amber LED might work better as well, high brightness, `sunlight visible ` are reliable and relatively cheap.

[martin54]

With Birchy, it`s a contrast rather than diffusion problem, dark tint will work better than a frost.

Amber LED might work better as well, high brightness, `sunlight visible ` are reliable and relatively cheap.

I think your right about changing the LEDs for a different colour Bruce but not sure if that is still an option.

[m_c]

Changing the colour of the LEDs at this point isn't going to happen, as the only commonly available matrices use Red and Green.

I'll see how the tinted perspex samples work out first.

[Musht]

Green will appear brightest, but it`s the least reliable colour and is very sensitive to ESD.

[m_c]

The perspex samples turned up last week, but I've only just got around to setting up a panel to try.


Display Testing by mc_mtb, on Flickr

The Frosted Slate Grey works pretty well, and only becomes illegible when I shine a 670lumen lamp directly at it, so it should be good once positioned suitably out of direct light with a hood.
Only issue with the perspex is you've got to buy it in a complete sheet, which means it works out pretty expensive, especialy since I'll probably only need under quarter of a sheet, so I'm waiting for somebody to drop of some frosted vinyl samples, which I'll try on some clear perspex to see how it compares before making any decisions.