I'm posting in beginners because this is a beginner question, though I'm not exactly.
tl;dr:
I'm looking for help choosing a 10W-ish LED module suitable for a regular desk lamp. Just plain LEDs (not psu or anything) but with a diffuse isotropic radiation pattern. Basically, a lightbulb.
So, about a year or so ago I started experimenting with all manner of light dimming. One of my ideas was to make a desk lamp for a child's bedroom that would start at full brightness but dim down slowly over a set interval until it reached nightlight levels. This was for helping kids get to sleep who are afraid of the dark. I originally started with triac dimming of a regular incandescent light, and though this worked just fine, I realized that 1) mains AC devices in a curious kid's bedroom isn't great, and anyway, incandescents are for dinosaurs.
So then I got the clever idea of doing this with LED but in the process I did something very stupid. In my excitement to get this project going, I designed a board, circular, to serve as the base of a lamp. On it was an attiny, power circuits, sound sensor (clap on), light sensor, moon-shaped array of LEDs for nightlight mode, etc. The dimming was high quality, 16b at a few kHz, etc. And while I was prototyping I used an MR16 style lamp for the main light. The base of the lamp would be wood, with the board mounted over it with standoffs, and acrylic over that. In the center would be a dowel onto which the LED would mount (somehow) and a lampshade would go on that.
Then I started searching for the LED module that I would "really" use and realized I had made a huge mistake in not figuring that out first. I'm looking for something that can be mounted at the top of a lamp and which radiates in all directions, like an olde fashioned bulb. But as far as I can tell, that animal doesn't exist.
So, that project died, but I'd still like to resurrect if I could find the right module. Any hints? Or is this the sort of thing you need to have the resources to custom design and spec?
PS -- Of course, I could cannibalize an LED lightbulb, removing the circuitry and letting myself drive the LEDs. But that's pricey-ish and, I was hoping on making a few of these for friends.