LED Zeppelin
Flashlight Enthusiast
In my house there is a windowless coat/laundry room next to the garage entry. It it a usually dark area as the short hall and facing half bath have no windows either.
The coat room is illuminated by two double-tube 4' long flourescent lights which give plenty of light but also plenty of hum. We tend to leave this light on even when not using the room for the spill light that brightens the hall even during the day.
My wife spurred me by asking me if I could add an efficient LED light. I really didn't want to pull more Romex and add a switched circuit, so I my solution is the following mod.
I screwed a 1 1/2 X 1/8 X 48" long aluminum bar to the sheet metal removable center cover inside the light. To this I epoxied 8 Lux III LEDs I had lying around, 4 UYOJ emitters and 4 TV1J stars. These are powered by a 350mA Xitanium driver I got from the Shoppe. I drilled holes adjacent to each LED for wire passage so I could keep all the wiring beneath the cover. I taped over the wires on the backside with some metal foil tape to prevent snagging and pulling of the LED leads.
There is an average of 9 square inches of heatsink surface per LED.
One nice thing about working with fixtures vs. flashlights is you can use wirenuts! I still had to solder the emitters and a Dean's micro plug so I could remove the cover/LEDs easily.
On the end of the fixture I mounted a pull chain switch. I used a 3-speed 4 position fan switch, off-1-2-3. I fed the switch with the line in from the wall switch, and the three outputs were wired to the Xitanuim, fourescent ballasts (of both fixtures), and the Xitanium again. So the pull chain function is: off - LED - both flourescents - LED - off. It would be nice to find a selector pull switch with just 1-2, but I'm not sure if they make them.
One frustration I ran into was the cheap construction of the pull chain switch. It didn't work and upon disassembly I found the copper contact leaves to be bent and dislodged. After fixing it I sprayed it with ProGold so hopefully it holds up.
The mod works great and accomplishes the intended task nicely. You can turn the light on and off by the wall switch, and use the pull chain to select either the LED array, or both flourescent fixtures. The LEDs illuminate the coat area sufficiently and spill into the hall, while the flourescents can still be used for laundry.
The coat room is illuminated by two double-tube 4' long flourescent lights which give plenty of light but also plenty of hum. We tend to leave this light on even when not using the room for the spill light that brightens the hall even during the day.
My wife spurred me by asking me if I could add an efficient LED light. I really didn't want to pull more Romex and add a switched circuit, so I my solution is the following mod.
I screwed a 1 1/2 X 1/8 X 48" long aluminum bar to the sheet metal removable center cover inside the light. To this I epoxied 8 Lux III LEDs I had lying around, 4 UYOJ emitters and 4 TV1J stars. These are powered by a 350mA Xitanium driver I got from the Shoppe. I drilled holes adjacent to each LED for wire passage so I could keep all the wiring beneath the cover. I taped over the wires on the backside with some metal foil tape to prevent snagging and pulling of the LED leads.
There is an average of 9 square inches of heatsink surface per LED.
One nice thing about working with fixtures vs. flashlights is you can use wirenuts! I still had to solder the emitters and a Dean's micro plug so I could remove the cover/LEDs easily.
On the end of the fixture I mounted a pull chain switch. I used a 3-speed 4 position fan switch, off-1-2-3. I fed the switch with the line in from the wall switch, and the three outputs were wired to the Xitanuim, fourescent ballasts (of both fixtures), and the Xitanium again. So the pull chain function is: off - LED - both flourescents - LED - off. It would be nice to find a selector pull switch with just 1-2, but I'm not sure if they make them.
One frustration I ran into was the cheap construction of the pull chain switch. It didn't work and upon disassembly I found the copper contact leaves to be bent and dislodged. After fixing it I sprayed it with ProGold so hopefully it holds up.
The mod works great and accomplishes the intended task nicely. You can turn the light on and off by the wall switch, and use the pull chain to select either the LED array, or both flourescent fixtures. The LEDs illuminate the coat area sufficiently and spill into the hall, while the flourescents can still be used for laundry.
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