How About A Flood Light? Maybe I should Make One. Advise Needed

[Curly]

Hello all...

I've been on a quest to find a set of lights I can mount to the outside of my toy hauler for night time lighting needs, but draws 350-500ma and provides a wide angle beam.

Honestly, I've searched for a long long time, and made a couple myself from car fog light fixtures. They do work quite well, but the reflectors are not made for the position of where the LED needs to be. They had H11 bulbs before... I used Bucktoot @ 350ma to drive them.

Essentially I want the equivalent of a regular halogen rectangle housing flood light fixture, just not the power consumption. Well, okay, the light output would be less with an LED and that's just fine. It doesn't need to be light the sun was shining or anything. Just enough for card playing or reading or whatever. The ones I made are actually fine, but I think very inefficient.

I bought one of those 128 LED type work lights in a rectangle housing and man what a piece of junk! My lights are brighter.

I'm sick of wasting money so I was curious if any of you have had a similar need or made one yourself... Just nice wide diffused white light that's water proof is all I need.

Okay, I've seen stuff with 6 or more "drop in" type modules but they are power hungry and blinding.

Help? THANKS!

 

[LukeA]

Here's a waterproof floodlight I made on the cheap last year. It's made from a spare piece of aluminum, 3 leftover XR-Es, leftover optics, waxed paper, the vacuum-formed part of a li-poly battery package, and a bunch of Fujik. This one runs from a power brick in a takeout soup container, but current and power source is pretty negotiable.

Is something like that what you want to build?

 

[The Dane]

Use your light as is and just add a piece of frosting gel, that will iron out "all" imperfections:

http://www.leefilters.com/lighting/products/finder/ref:C46DD4ABDDC146/

 

[Curly]

Here's a waterproof floodlight I made on the cheap last year. It's made from a spare piece of aluminum, 3 leftover XR-Es, leftover optics, waxed paper, the vacuum-formed part of a li-poly battery package, and a bunch of Fujik. This one runs from a power brick in a takeout soup container, but current and power source is pretty negotiable.

Is something like that what you want to build?

Well, sorta... Just a lot prettier. ) Gotta be on the outside of a nice trailer.

I had a piece of aluminum machined to hole 3 p60 drop in modules. Went to Home Depot and bought a 100 watt flood light and gutted it. Put the newly machined piece with 3 p60s inside. Wow, like seriously bright! Overkill basically. Way to focused beam.

Maybe I'll try a row of stars or Luxeon with optics. I'm just afraid the optics will bounce off going down the highway even behind the glass on the fixture.

Maybe what I built is really good enough. What I need to do is take a picture of one, but that will have to wait till next week. My trailer is stored for the winter inside a friend's machine shop.

One question: You know how if you take a Cree led on a star board and just fire it up how the light just scatters everywhere and is really dim? Do the 115 degree Luxeons do the same thing or are they more focused?

Thanks!

 

[LukeA]

Then maybe you want something like this but with ±14˚ optics instead.

All of the 'normal' for flashlight LEDs have Lambertian light distribution, so yes, without a secondary optic, Luxeons will also have zero throw.

But Ledil makes a nice ±14˚ optic whose holder has pretty aggressive double face tape on the back. (You mentioned worrying about performance riding on the highway.) I'm using some of those optics for a project and they're very nice to work with. Plus, as in the bike light link I gave above, they fit very nicely inside 1/16" wall 1" square aluminum tubing.