LED Lighting
I got some LED's from
They are the cheapest price on the net for LED's. I ordered 300 of 8000mcd 3mmWhite LED X 100pcs (LE4002) and 100 of 13000mcd 5mm White LED x 100pcs (LE1002). I want to build some lights for my cupboard tops in my home. I like LED's because the power needed to run them is very low.
They came, all the way from Hong Kong, and very quickly also. It only took about 5 days to get in the mail.
I wanted to mount these into some sort of strong frame, so off to the dump again. I find so much usable metal at the land-fill, and I figure that recycling is a good thing these days, people waste so much good material! I found some old garage door rails and cut them up. I like these because they have a lip that I can mount with, and also a 45 degree angle on one edge that I mounted the LED's to. I didn't want them pointing strait up, or strait out so this works perfect for me!
If you look close in the picture below, you can see the LED's mounted. I had to use liquid metal, as nothing really seemed to hold the 3mm LED's on the metal, except the liquid metal, it is very strong.
Now that the LED's are mounted, I had to solder each wire in series. There are a total of 84 LED's, so two banks of 42 is what I want. The AC power I fed into a bridge rectifier for DC. The voltage was lower than expected because I read on the internet to expect 170Vdc from this, but I got 145Vdc instead.
What I found is with 42 LED's per string and a 300 ohm resistor, I have 22mah current draw, and the LED's are able to handle 30mah. A bit low is a good thing. With LED's, you have to worry more about the current draw, rather than the supply voltage. I am only at 2.8Vdc supply each LED, and I suspect this is due to them being in series.
Well, what allot of work for all the LED's. I fired up one bank just to see if it works
They are pretty bright for how small they are. well, they worked so now I have motivation again. Getting tired of working on this many small lights, but now that I can see how cool its going to look, I am eager to finish. Drilling this many holes for the lights in the metal, was a very tedious task!
Well, got one light set finished. The light is very soft and I like it. It actually provides enough light to do things around the main floor of the house, and be able to see enough to not trip around. It only draws a total of 6watts power.
It looks better than the picture, but one thing I have noticed, digital camera's have a really hard time with this spectrum of light, so everything looks so different in pictures from what it really is
Well, now I want more, much more. I am going to finish the other cupboard top, and then I am going to build extremely small - low profile ones for under the cabinets. After that is done, I think I will also light under the counter tops and bar counter top so they will shine on the floor.
You can even see the light in the daylight, they are really brighter than my pictures! oh look, my garbage rat cat with green eyes...
I tested the string above the one counter for how much power they draw, its only 6 watts. So with a calculation for leaving them running all day, every day lets see how much they would cost me. 6watts x 24 hours x 365 days = 52560 / 1000 = 52.560 Kilo-Watt hours x .19 (about the average price per Kw/h with GST and all services on my bill, I am probably a bit high) = $9.986 per year worth of power. These will be very cheap to run, especially when I put a timer on them to come on only 1/2 the time so they don't run in the daylight. I do figure though one I am done placing all the lights, the cost will be the same per year, because I am installing allot more lights and plan the draw to be about 15 watts or maybe 20 watts, but on half the time.
I rather light the light that these put off. Since I built my house so 80% could be lighted from the main floor, it gives enough light to see everything. Its not too bright that you even notice when you are watching the TV, but you don't have to run any lights to get around. Its nice for the midnight trip to the fridge, and every time I think to myself "those lights are awesome".
I cant stop. Now that I have seen how good one set really looks, and how little of power they consume, I want to build so many more lights. As soon as I can, I am even going to order a whole pile more LED's, like a 1000 or more. We will keep you posted of my future homemade lighting adventures!
Well this weekend it is going to rain, or so they say, so I am going to get the rest of the counter tops finished, and also build two larger LED lights for my two porch lights. I will post pictures soon...
A few more strings built...about half done. I want to build some extremely low profile units and put them under each cupboard edge too. In the picture below, you are able to see each small LED, but I am going to hide this with deflectors.
The next project here, is some outdoor lights I want. I want two spot lights for the outside porch. All the LED's are wired in series on the board. I was able to fit 32 onto this small circuit board from Radio Shack (now circuit city).
Wired up and testing, low power. I guess they must all be facing the right direction. If you get just one the wrong direction, they will not light at all, and have fun trying to find the ONE!
Seems very bright!
These LED's are 10mah current if you read the specifications, so trying to get as close as possible. The light has 110Vac feeding a bridge rectifier. The DC voltage from the rectifier is about 144Vdc.
I was trying to think of a way to make a case for this light. It took me a while and then I remembered the broken fluorescent lights I had kicking around. They had in the past quit working for no reason, and they are fairly new. After gutting the light, I did find all that was wrong was a fuse had blown, but its way down inside, and a pain to get to! So, I don't really like the fluorescent lights anyways.
The lenses I used is off some halogen lights I had. If you are careful with a knife on the halogen lights, you can get the glass lens to pop off. To glue it on the next light, I used liquid metal. Liquid metal is a two part epoxy that dries very hard, but you can still sand it if need be. I like it for some stuff, but I don't use it for anything strong, like replacing where a weld should be on metal.
It looks awesome, now to test it
CRAP. big mistake, but now I know. I let this unit run for hours, only to come into the house and find that it was HOT. So I hooked up some more LED's that I had disabled on the board to lower the current. It wont get hot now, but I have damaged a few of the LED's. They are not as bright now, therefore the whole unit is a bit dimmer, Sucks!
I think next unit I build, I will keep the current like I did all my other LED project at 20mah, and not the 30mah draw. All my other projects are doing very well and do not have any issues. The only reason why I was trying to get as close as possible to 30mah is because I was thinking of getting the lights as bright as possible. Not worth it! keep the current low!
I do like how this light turned out though, and will build future ones with all the same pieces. I will say one thing, drilling all those holes for the LED's to fit into, is a pain in the @ss. I think as the weather gets worse for winter, I will build many, many more lights. The last light I built is only 3watts max power consumption, they are so low, I love them!
They are 7000 k on the spectrum, very, very white, but if you take a picture, it always has a blue hue.
