Converting spots to LEDs

[Zeppelinium]

Oh, yeah, I had seen these uber land yachts. Urk.

OK, I appreciate mucho the comment about the porch light shinning onto the neighbor, so made some mods. The top fixture is the first effort--all discs toward the front. Great light output and really good party light, since it illuminates well to the left and right. The two side discs are extinguished when this light is switched to dim. The center disc is still bright on the dim setting, as in the previous post, but not full bright.

Second fixture (in each image) has the middle disc back toward the rear so that its light is shielded from going too far outward and bugging the neighbor, but the party lights on each side are foward give good illumination to the side. However, turning them puts them back in the fixture a little, so there is some minor vignetting. Not bad.

The third fixture has the middle disc far back, and the other two back about half, but they are turned inwards, so the left disc illuminates to the right. This hides all the discs from the neighbor, but still provides really good party light (eg, light along the side of the Airstream) and their is no vignetting.







If you elect to make this kind of fixture (or any fixture using these LED discs), be careful to keep the edges of the discs from contacting the shell or each other. Many of them are trimmed very close to solder on the LEDs and you may short the disc to ground.

Unike the first two, the third fixture is wired for two power wires, since it will go on the '77 Safari, which has most of the inside skin off and I can add a wire up to the top of the door. This will allow me to have only the center disc powered when I want a porch light and will allow me to more finely control its brightness when on dim. The other two discs will be controlled by the scare light switch, so they can also be bright or dim.

Will these discs vibrate out of their sockets and require some kind of restraint? Only miles will tell.

It take awhile, but sometimes I finally come up with a solution I like.

Zep

[perryg114]

Ok Zep here is another supplier of LED stuff direct from China. These are relatively cheap and there are endless varieties to chose from. You can get arrays or individual really bright flashlight emitters. You will have to get creative on your search parameters because they don't list things consistantly and the English is very bad but can be amusing to read. Here is a link to get you started.

LED emitter at DinoDirect.com (3012List)

You might try other search parameters of LED, Emitter, Flashlight.

They have components to make flashlights and other LED light sources. You just have to be patient and creative to find what you want. Shipping takes about a month from China but your stuff will show up eventually. I have a couple LED flashlights from them and they are light having a car headlight in your hand.

Here is some more info on cree LED's which are use for flashlights and other high intensity LED's.

http://flashlightwiki.com/Cree

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cree_Inc

Maybe the above links will help shed some light on LED technology.


Perry

[perryg114]

More stuff

http://www.dinodirect.com/led-light-bulb-gu10-110v.html

http://www.dinodirect.com/Light-Bulb-110V-60LED-E27.html

http://www.dinodirect.com/led-down-lamp-energy-saving-down-lamp-fashion-led-down-lamp-down-lamp-lamp-lamps-led-lamp-energy-saving-lamps-led.html

http://www.dinodirect.com/light-bulbs-11w-energy-saving-multifunction-led.html


Here is one you can even change the colors on.

http://www.dinodirect.com/lamp-bulb-...al-3w-rgb.html


Rope lights in this one as well. Who needs neon.
http://www.dinodirect.com/se-LED%252...%2520lighting/

Here is 12V only stuff

http://www.dinodirect.com/se-12V%2520LED/

Perry

[Aage]

Interesting English! Look fast here! Now is writing:

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And another cute one:

You may be confused by that you are not convenient to wear your earphone when you are driving. This Bluetooth car MP3 player can solve your problems.The Bluetooth car mp3 player supports music of MP3 and WMA form. Adopts genuine imported core plate, made of high quality materials, this FM transmitter car MP3 player is of anti-interference, it can be used world wide.

[Zeppelinium]

I'm planning on the over-the-door lights to be installed for 10 years before they need replacing, so I decided that the LED discs need positive retention in their sockets. A little acrylic and a heat gun plus about 3 hours time and viola! they probably aren't going to fall out.

Push down from the top to retain the side-pin versions:


Push in from the front for the back-pin version:


It probably doesn't matter much if the retention fingers disperse the light a little:


Zep

[perryg114]

You going to have a lens over the front to keep the critters out of it?

Perry

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by perryg114

You going to have a lens over the front to keep the critters out of it?

Perry

There's a photo in post 28, a piece of acrylic sanded with 400 grit paper.

Of course that was 4 days ago and the design has changed, at least internally.

[webspinner]

Zep, thank you for all your research!

It would be really nice to have outside lighting without having to deploy the awning and put LED rope light around its perimeter. We might still do that for festivity's sake, but sometimes it's nice just to flip a switch.

[Zeppelinium]

Originally Posted by webspinner

Zep, thank you for all your research!

It would be really nice to have outside lighting without having to deploy the awning and put LED rope light around its perimeter. We might still do that for festivity's sake, but sometimes it's nice just to flip a switch.

I'm working on some easily hung fixtures and a way to plug them in next to the scare light. Details to follow..

Originally Posted by perryg114
You going to have a lens over the front to keep the critters out of it?

Yes, they all have a sealed lens, per the earlier photo.

Zep

[Zeppelinium]

The mid-bath is nice, but this light bar is a bit much. This bar light had 6 bulbs, drawing almost 9 amps.

It now has four LEDs, drawing less than 1 amp on bright and less than 0.04 amps on dim. Three of the LEDs have the 12 SMDs and the fourth one has the 10 SMDs. This light's one unique feature is that only one LED is powered when on dim--it's isolated with a 1 amp rectifier. The dim setting is achieved with a 150 ohm resistor.

The SPDT switch is on the fixture now, instead of the cabinet.





Zep

[Zeppelinium]

Turns out, you can dim the LEDs that use the A61 regulator, but not nearly as easily as the non-regulated or the 7150 regulated discs. The A61 maintains pretty close to 2W power consumption over a much wider voltage range. For non-dimming applications, I'm beginning to like the A61 versions much better--they are about 35% more efficient and the color of their light is more of a pure white (not bluish, but definitely less warm than other "warm white" LEDs). This efficiency has nothing to do with the A61, of course, it's the 5050 LED chips, so that's another variable that can change "without notice."



I am very disappointed in the 15-LED chip, although it appears that it is slightly more efficient than the 10-LED 7150 chip, since it puts out slightly more light for the same current. If you want maximum light (and maximum efficiency), go for the 10-LED chip with the A61 regulator. I'm still going to use a lot of the 10-LED with the 7150 regulator, just so I can dim them easily.

I didn't check the MR16 bulb substitute for brightness, but looking at its current curve, I'd guess that it has a maximum brightness about half that of the other 10-LED discs, but about the same efficiency. I don't see any advantage to this physical arrangement--you can buy discs with rear pins that are brighter and the glass envelope does not provide any spotlight effect, since the 5050 SMDs are on the face.



The following charts should give you an idea what size resistor to use for dimming the LEDs. A 1/2 Watt resistor is sufficient, except below 47 ohms when dimming the 10-LED A61 disc. There is more data in the attached XLS file.



This chart shows the same data as the above chart. You can see that the LEDs that use the A61 regulator don't exhibit the same curve reversal as the current approaches maximum, but it appears that the MR16 bulb does, and may have a A61 inside.




This chart shows the same data as the above chart.


My experience so far is that you can take these down to below 30 milliamps when you want a very dim light, eg, a nightlight. But I think for doing any kind of low-light task illumination, you'll wind up between 60 and 100 milliamps (60-120 ohms, depending on the LED).

Zep

[Zeppelinium]

Here's the XLS data file for the previous post.
Zep

[Zeppelinium]

I finally got around to looking into the RFI problem. I put a 0.47 ufd cap on one of the offending LED side-pin lights. It didn't seem to help much. However, it's easy to do and I should have used a disc ceramic instead of mylar--they are much better at RF frequencies.



The holes in the middle of the disc are for pins to make the disc into a rear-pin light. If you have a rear pin light, you can solder the cap right to the pins (down close to the disc).

Zep

[Sbb]

Hi, I am switching to leds that I purchased from AS. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying the task. I love twisting up and into the overhead lockers. So far I have 7 done, about 12 more to go. However...the easy one over the sink is putting me over the edge. I put the two little prongs in, test, it works, I put lens on and lite won't work, try another bulb, same thing, round and round I go. I am very careful to match up and put lens on correctly. What am I missing...really it would be nice to do a simple little task. Thank you. Sbb

[HiHoAgRV]

Will all of this cool work, we are gonna start calling you "L.E.D Zeppelin", oh wait...can you play lead guitar?

[Sbb]

No kidding, I get one in and literally cross my fingers as I turn the light switch on. Just can't understand why the lens is shutting the light off. Argggg
Try again tomorrow.

[MaxAB]

Originally Posted by Zeppelinium

I finally got around to looking into the RFI problem. I put a 0.47 ufd cap on one of the offending LED side-pin lights. It didn't seem to help much. However, it's easy to do and I should have used a disc ceramic instead of mylar--they are much better at RF frequencies.

Attachment 176424

The holes in the middle of the disc are for pins to make the disc into a rear-pin light. If you have a rear pin light, you can solder the cap right to the pins (down close to the disc).

Zep

Holy "Sierra", ZEP! Great info! Thanks, Max