DIY LED lighting

[Eureka]

Just a quick demonstration as to what $3 in LEDs, wiring, PCB boards and wall tack can do for you...

A simple wiring harness with LEDs:

I used a spare 3 pin to 4 pin fan harness for the connector (you can use any one of the ground lines, but remember yellow is 12V; also, use two pins apart to avoid accidental shorts):

2 leds per board, 2 boards in series for a total of 4 leds in series:

Simple wiring technique, just use a perf board and alternate directions for your leds. This way when you wire them, all the adjacent pins are the same polarity:

I used two strings in series for a total of 8 leds, in parallel.

What it looks like in daylight, the LEDs look blue because of poor white balance on my iphone (alternatively, this is what it would look like if I used blue LEDs!):

I think it works out pretty well. Would be brighter if I used 4 led groupings per perf board piece, and used 4 parallel strings, but it works for me, and it still is visible in CCFL lighting. Right now I'm using wall tack to hold up the leds but I'll switch to double sided foam tape when I get some. Hope this is inspiration for those of you with a DIY itch and a basic grasp of soldering and circuits.

 

[szvwxcszxc]

wow ghetto but cool mod. and nice case.

 

[Eureka]

Thanks... actually I think you were the one who posted about custom LED lighting. This is about as custom as you get!

 

[aigomorla]

Thanks... actually I think you were the one who posted about custom LED lighting. This is about as custom as you get!

lolol...

<3 LED's...

ahahaha.... all that is powered by a PC PSU as well...

But yeah... when i was taking a break from pc's and back into fish tanks... LED's LED's LED's was all on my mind, because i had a ton of unused atx psu's at my disposal.

😛

even dimable with a good ol sunbeam rheobus!

 

[Eureka]

Nice setup! Why the aluminum block?

Also, you probably could've saved yourself the bulk of using a rheobus by using a pot.

 

[aigomorla]

Nice setup! Why the aluminum block?

Also, you probably could've saved yourself the bulk of using a rheobus by using a pot.

cuz those arent the tiny led's ur playing with.

the big white ones are 10W, the tiny ones are 3W... i think the ones ur playing with are 1W.

The math there translates to a lot of heat that alu block is cooling. 😀

Also yes i could of used a pot, but a rheobuss is essentially 4 high amperage pots. And with that many led's its nice to keep the dials next to each other. 😀

 

[Eureka]

76W led assembly?! You trying to emulate the sun or something? I have a couple of CREE LED torches and they draw like 3W.

I'm pretty sure these 5mm LEDs are much less than 1W. Less than .1W each.

Where did you get those LEDs anyway? I might use a couple instead of these LED strings now. 😀

 

[aigomorla]

76W led assembly?! You trying to emulate the sun or something? I have a couple of CREE LED torches and they draw like 3W.

I'm pretty sure these 5mm LEDs are much less than 1W. Less than .1W each.

Where did you get those LEDs anyway? I might use a couple instead of these LED strings now. 😀

actually yes i was trying to emulate the sun! :sneaky:

They worked a little too well, in the aspect i had too much light hence algae bloom.. :\


another one of my LED projects...
Let there be LIGHT!

😀


The 10W are from china... They run @ 12V, a lot of fun projects could be done with the 10W's.
Especially when our PC's run a constant voltage PSU @ 5v & 12V.
They do require a sink tho, as they do get very hot and can be burnt out.

The 3W which are the smaller ones u see, are bridgelux, there almost on the same lvl as cree's, however id probably buy cree's over bridgelux.

 

[Eureka]

Sweet... I wonder if a direct mount to the case panels would be adequate cooling. What are you using to adhere the LEDs to the surface?

 

[aigomorla]

Sweet... I wonder if a direct mount to the case panels would be adequate cooling. What are you using to adhere the LEDs to the surface?

crazy glue + thermal paste.

Its an old trick we once used to get video card ram sinks to stick onto ram when they wouldnt.

i dont know if a direct mount would work.
Maybe it could seeing how its a big piece of metal, however you would still need a type of active fan id think.

 

[Eureka]

Well, I decided I couldn't live with being outdone by a guy's aquarium grow lights, but I didn't want to wait for high powered LEDs from china. Instead, I decided to bulk up my lighting... now with 4x the LEDs!

I'm using 8 LEDs per board for a bit more brightness:

Improved solder joints for better connection and reliability:

Using double sided sticky foam to adhere to panels:

What it looks like now:

I switched to blue this time since I liked how it looked in the poor cell phone photo.