SM; With respect to the connectors it's the scuffing of the mating surfaces in the plugging and unplugging. I will still be looking for a solution. 8-)
As for the transformer comment: Yes you need some sort of isolation between the wall outlet and your LEDs. Luckily the DC power supply needed usually provides this isolation.
diy; OK good. You know the drill.
I finally received the drills so I could continue with the fab of the LED panel.
Instead of hand bending and soldering a zillion LED leads together I went with a circuit board. But having a circuit board fabbed commercially, of this size, is cost prohibitive. So using a CNC router I scribed a single sided sheet of circuit board that has copper cladding on one side. Then I sicked the router on it to drill the 270 holes in the precisely needed locations.
This is what I started with:
This is what I did to it:
This is the result:
Now if the LEDs would show up..
Nice job, oh to have access to a CnC machine =)
I finally got my LEDs. So I assembled a LED panel.
Here's a view of the front. This thing is exactly 12" tall and 9" wide.
The parts on the front are all soldered on the back side. (shown here)
Here it is fired up. It's runs on 12VDC and is drawing about 3/4 of an Amp.
It's impossible to get thru a digital camera the actual results as the camera sensor is badly overloaded. If you look at it straight on, you'll wish you hadn't. I am not real happy with the red LEDs. Remind me to not believe Lumex's data sheets anymore. Both colors were to have 60degree (total) angles. This equates to the beam patterns overlapping the adjacent LED's physical position. The blue Crees do just that, the red Lumex LEDs appear to be about half that spot size, meaning half the angle! I may want to make a change before I build the other side. I could be trying your 'diamond diffusor plate' yet, SantaMonica.
Very nice. You used Cree's? Aren't those similar to the Superflux in that they are 1w each? Your panel is only pulling 9W total; not sure how that can be.
Very cool, Nice job :mrgreen: I'm green with envey
Hi Santa Monica.
You can't enclose a bunch 1W LEDs in acrylic and not expect a hot fire to soon occur. These are just obtainable 'gum drop' LEDs not unobtainable SuperFlux LEDs from Phillips. I spent a lot of time just trying to find some of those to see what their price was. It seems like Phillips just wants to brag about them not actually sell any. Maybe I looked in the wrong places though, as it gets confusing when big companies buy up all the little ones.
These LEDs just have about 23mA running thru them.
The blue are Cree the Red are not. I may be going to them. I may also be going to the 120degrees as they actually look pretty reasonable in cost and up the power a bit without a huge jump to the 'thermal trouble land'.
I think I'm going to complete my scrubber but just go with one side lighting and get this panel into use. I won't box in the light panels as that will allow me to alter them. If this panel obviously gets growth going quickly it may be fine as is. If it's lack-luster in its growing... I will change things. As a yardstick how soon do you see 'something' growing on a CFL lit screen?
Visible by day 3, cleanable by day 7.
Reporting in SIR!
I have finished the construction. Learned a few things along the way too. I'm wondering about the flow "down the slot". I may need to modify the slot boards as seen from above.
I need a different power supply as the box of 30 wall warts I have wouldn't divulge a 12V, 1/2A unit. So I grabbed an old linear supply I ripped out of a tannery control system years ago and hooked it up. It had no labels so I'm not sure what it was rated for but it's getting far to warm for me to risk having in my living room.
Here it is. Note it's just one sided as I'm not going to build the other side's LED panel until I see this one actually perform acceptably.
I haven't resolved how to actually mount this beast either.
Very very nice!
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