Want to make my own outdoor LED light

"Originally Posted by blasterman
A pair of 20watt Bridgelux bolted to an aluminun sink with a front mounted motion detector with a plexi cover"

Now this is something I'd like to build. Even four to six 10 watt LEDs.
I'm struggling with matching up to a LED driver using A/C power and designing a waterproof housing.

I was also thinking of replacing the 500 watt halogen bulb in my work light. I have one of these dual halogen lights on a tripod like this...

http://www.azpartsmaster.com/Products/Halogen-Work-Light---1000-watt__C55150.aspx

Has anyone tried this?

Thanks

here is mine that i did although its not waterproof it had been installed for almost 2 years and have had no problems. you will need alot of heatsink (aluminum) for that much power.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/226508
this company also make some http://www.ledlightsorient.com/flood-lights-c-9.html from what i hear the lumens and watts are pretty accurate

Re: Want to make my own outdoor LED lights

Thanks shortstack, nice job on that mod and there is a lot of good info in that thread I need to pay attention to.

I'm just getting started on changing the lighting in my yard, I want to start converting to LED, but I have to learn how to build them first.

Right now I have some 12 volt 20w-50w halogens and some 65 watt CFLs. I hate the white of the CFLs and MH HIDs. The halogens nice, but expensive to run for the amount of light needed. My idea is to create my own LED outdoor lights. It gives me the option of neutral LEDs or adding other colors depending on what I'm lighting; driveway, pool, deck, gazebo, hedges, volleyball court, etc.

I wonder is I could start by just using some 3 watt LEDs mounted to 1/8" *2" angle aluminum or channel, and see what that does. Maybe try to mount lenses over the LEDs to focus the light a bit tighter and somehow cover with plexiglass to waterproof. I have options for power also, the 12v landscape transformer or 120v. The 12v transformer can bump up to 13v or 14v for more power on longer runs, and it's rated at 900 watts.

I'll keep digging around here and hopefully get some other suggestions from the forum.

Thanks

Shortstack has a simple but effective solution.

However, if you want to hit lumen levels in the several thousands you need a big heat sink, especially if it's passive.

My idea was to mount the emitters inside of rather wide aluminum c-channel, and then bolt/glue that length of C-channel to a good size heat sink like those you find at heatsink usa. Then all you have to do is glue a piece of plexi over the top of the C-channel, or do it with weather stripping.

You're done. You just have to find a place to stash the LED driver, or build your own if you are so inclined. Mean Wells will drive any config of big emitters you wish. There are DIYs for motion detector circuits, or you can just steal one from a cheap motion detector light. A bare 1000+ lumen emitter is intimidating outdoors at night, let alone a couple of them.

To match a 500watt halogen is a different story. You're going to need at least 1/5 the wattage of LEDs to hit the same lumen level, and I'm talking about workable LED light and not crappy, low CRI cool white. That's about $140 for the emitters, and then you need to add in the drivers, and at least a 2foot chunk of heat sink with fans. Do-able, indestructable, will last forever, and be rather expensive. If I were doing this I'd use neutral white Bridgelux (the new ones should hit the street soon) simply because they are cheaper than anything at high lumen levels.

However, I've been around a lot of contruction sites, and seen some pretty innovative DIY 'worklights'. Bolting a cheap 4' shoplight vertically to a metal stand is perhaps the most popular. The there's the array of 40watt CFLs in reflectors bolted to an ironing board. Any of those work better and provide better light than a 500watt halogen.

Blasterman,

Just curious, I have an 8 foot piece of 2" * 2" * 1/8" angle aluminum, how many 5 watt Bridgelux emitters can I mount? What about 10 watt emitters?

Thanks

The rough rule with Bridgelux if you look at their thermal notes is 10square inches of heat-sink per watt used.

So, 2x2 aluminum has 8 square inches of radiating area per linear inch assuming all the surfaces are in the open. Given the right angle reduces thermal transfer we have to add a little more. One 5watt emitter per eight linear inches of 2x2 should be fine and last until you retire..... from a thermal standpoint

A dozen 240's (5-watt) will make a pretty decent work light. Hell, if you get shipping in the U.S. and already have the aluminum you could throw this together with a decent Mean Well for no more than $100.

2x2 will have a hard time with a 10watt because heat won't be able to move fast enough down the length to keep them reasonably cool. Plus, 1/8 is real dicey with anything over 5-6watts.

Rather than an eight foot length, you could always cut in half and mount both pieces facing each other.

OK, To start, I would like to make a worklight using multiple 5 watt arrays, a combination of these two colors, BXRA-C0360 and BXRA-W0240. They both are 13.2 v and 350 mA.
I'm still learning about LED driver aspect, so I do need some help here.
Are there drivers just for each array or can I wire up multiple arrays to a single driver? For this project, I'll be using line voltage, 120vac.

Remember, "the biggest bang for the buck"!

Thanks

DX has put up several new supplies-

This one is my favorite so far- for your application it sounds like it would be perfect, but as I've not tested it YMMV:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.42905

Waterproof 320mA 30W Power Constant Current Source LED Driver (85~265V)
- 30 watt high power waterproof LED driver
- Input voltage: 85-265V
- Output voltage: 60-98V
- Output current: 320mA

purduephotog, Thanks for the link to that driver.

I'm still digging around, trying to understand how to match up drivers with arrays.

So here it is as I understand it.

The driver purduephotog listed is 30w running at 320mA.
Based on the LEDs I am looking to run (13.2 v @ 350 mA), in theory, I can run 7 of these in series?

How I come to that conclusion is this
30w/.32A = 93.75v.
93.75V/13.2Vf=7.1 Arrays

Question , What if I only run 6 arrays in series? then the voltage will go up to 15.6V, right? Will I toast the 13.2 V arrays or are these arrays have some sort of tolerance, +/- xV? Or do I need to buy 15V arrays? edit - I looked in spec sheets, there is a tolerance, but not this much.

Next question.
What if my driver was 30w at 700mA
Would this mean that with the same 13.2 v @ 350 mA arrays that I would have to run 2 sets of 3 LEDs in parallel (3 in series * 3 in series?)

Thanks for the help and having patience with a nubie!

egghead2004 said:

purduephotog, Thanks for the link to that driver.

I'm still digging around, trying to understand how to match up drivers with arrays.

So here it is as I understand it.

The driver purduephotog listed is 30w running at 320mA.
Based on the LEDs I am looking to run (13.2 v @ 350 mA), in theory, I can run 7 of these in series?

How I come to that conclusion is this
30w/.32A = 93.75v.
93.75V/13.2Vf=7.1 Arrays

Question , What if I only run 6 arrays in series? then the voltage will go up to 15.6V, right? Will I toast the 13.2 V arrays or are these arrays have some sort of tolerance, +/- xV? Or do I need to buy 15V arrays? edit - I looked in spec sheets, there is a tolerance, but not this much.

Next question.
What if my driver was 30w at 700mA
Would this mean that with the same 13.2 v @ 350 mA arrays that I would have to run 2 sets of 3 LEDs in parallel (3 in series * 3 in series?)

Thanks for the help and having patience with a nubie!

Click to expand...

The unit I posted is a 'constant current' (untested by me- but DX has been pretty accurate there).

That means that the voltage will vary with until a constant amount of current drives through the arrays.

Which means you could put 7 arrays in series and the voltage would keep increasing until you got 320ma of current flowing.

If you take one array out and only have 6, then the voltage would drop until you have 320ma of current flowing.

That's the slick part. They're usually very expensive, so if these are even somewhat decent they'd be worth it.

But I don't have any free cash to experiment right now

hmm, this is what I am having a hard time understanding. There are constant current and constant voltage drivers.

Constant current, that means the voltage will vary. In this instance Output voltage: 60-98V. Is there something on the driver where I manually set the voltage or do I regulate the voltage by running multiple arrays in series until I get the correct range? Now, for arrays that are 13.2 volts, does that mean I HAVE to run 7 in series? what if I run only 5?

Constant voltage - I think I understand this one better, maybe. I just need to match up the arrays that have that drivers voltage and amp rating. I can run as many arrays as I want as long as I don't exceed the wattage rating of the driver.

I'm ready to order, but I need to understand this aspect first, I don't want to toast any arrays on my first try.

Will this work? Want to make my own outdoor LED light

Will this driver work with 6 Bridgelux 402's in series?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.42906

Here are the driver specs
36 watt high power waterproof LED driver
- Input voltage: 85-265V
- Output voltage: DC28-45V
- Output current: 670mA


Here are the 402 specs
Forward Voltage:8.9V; Forward Current:600mA; Mounting Type:SMD;


If this works, then the light will be about 2400 lumens with only 36 watts. I'll be ordering the spot and medium reflectors so I can have a fairly tight beam. The light fixture will be 30' above and 30'-75' away from the target area. Over time, if this projects a nice light, I will be making 4 of them to light up about 5000 s/f area in the back yard.

Please advise if the driver choice and LEDs match!

Thanks

Re: Will this work? Want to make my own outdoor LED light

egghead2004 said:

Will this driver work with 6 Bridgelux 402's in series?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.42906

Here are the driver specs
36 watt high power waterproof LED driver
- Input voltage: 85-265V
- Output voltage: DC28-45V
- Output current: 670mA


Here are the 402 specs
Forward Voltage:8.9V; Forward Current:600mA; Mounting Type:SMD;


If this works, then the light will be about 2400 lumens with only 36 watts. I'll be ordering the spot and medium reflectors so I can have a fairly tight beam. The light fixture will be 30' above and 30'-75' away from the target area. Over time, if this projects a nice light, I will be making 4 of them to light up about 5000 s/f area in the back yard.

Please advise if the driver choice and LEDs match!

Thanks

Click to expand...

6*9V = 54V, which is a bit too high for the driver- it may do it at reduced current, or it may begin to power cycle on and off as it over heats.

You may want to look at one of the meanwell units instead- google meanwell LED and you'll get their page.

Re: Want to make my own outdoor LED lights

egghead2004 said:

I have options for power also, the 12v landscape transformer or 120v. The 12v transformer can bump up to 13v or 14v for more power on longer runs, and it's rated at 900 watts.

I'll keep digging around here and hopefully get some other suggestions from the forum.

Thanks

Click to expand...

My understanding is that landscape transformers output 12V AC. It's unclear if you are aware of this, but important if you want to use it.

If you guys are looking for heatsinks for these things check out these guys. I have bought stuff from them over the past year and it's pretty good for a reasonable price. It comes with a complete housing, cover/shield, usually rubber sealed, stainless hardware, just no guts.

Optical Inferno said:

If you guys are looking for heatsinks for these things check out these guys. I have bought stuff from them over the past year and it's pretty good for a reasonable price. It comes with a complete housing, cover/shield, usually rubber sealed, stainless hardware, just no guts.

Click to expand...

How did you buy it? Do they run a store? Pricing? I'm afraid my Mandrin is pretty rusty...

They've got some products I'd like to use as the basis for construction so I suppose an email is in order...

purduephotog said:

How did you buy it? Do they run a store? Pricing? I'm afraid my Mandrin is pretty rusty...

They've got some products I'd like to use as the basis for construction so I suppose an email is in order...

Click to expand...

Yeah my Mardarin is no good either...LOL. A simple e-mail was all it took to get the ball rolling. Just ask for product pricing and they will give it to you in a piece cost, and quantity pricing as well.

I think they require a bank transfer, but I could be wrong.