Ideas For Cheap Simple LED Housing

[ellerbro]

I'm trying to come up with a simple and cheap way to make a housing for a single star mounted LED. It would be hung from the ceiling for general illumination purposes. It will have a 10-12 foot wire from the housing to a battery pack set on a table or something. It is intended for people living off-grid in the developing world. A single LED sounds pretty weak for general illumination, but even 100 lumens is considerably more than most people currently have. It will be run at 1W or less. No optics or reflectors since a broad angle of light is desired. The housing basically needs to protect the LED from accidental damage, but nothing super rugged since it will be fixed lighting. A resistor will be used for current limiting, no driver or anything else to go in the housing.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I was thinking maybe a discarded tin can, but not sure about a glass/plastic cover.

Thanks!

 

[LukeA]

How about make the LED mount so that it fits into the neck of a plastic bottle? Maybe so it can screw in to a common thread size. I know that plastic bottles are pretty accessible even in the middle of nowhere.

 

[tsask]

have you considered a single 5 mm LED? wired to 2 AA batteries w/ switch. you can get incredible runtimes add a resistor if you like. IMHO it works great!

 

[ellerbro]

I'm using a 5mm 100mA Hebei warm white LED in a simple desk lamp that I've made a bunch of prototypes of (3 D cells, resistor, LED). It provides good reading light but not nearly enough for general illumination. I'm shooting for at least 50 lumens therefore an SSC P4, Cree XR-E, or Lumileds Rebel is called for I think.

I like the plastic bottle idea, thanks. I'll look into diameters and see how to make them fit.

As a general rule should the LEDs be fully enclosed to protect from dust and accidental touching of the domes? That would be the more robust design, but I wonder if it's worth trying without a front glass/plastic cover.

 

[LukeA]

I'm using a 5mm 100mA Hebei warm white LED in a simple desk lamp that I've made a bunch of prototypes of (3 D cells, resistor, LED). It provides good reading light but not nearly enough for general illumination. I'm shooting for at least 50 lumens therefore an SSC P4, Cree XR-E, or Lumileds Rebel is called for I think.

I like the plastic bottle idea, thanks. I'll look into diameters and see how to make them fit.

As a general rule should the LEDs be fully enclosed to protect from dust and accidental touching of the domes? That would be the more robust design, but I wonder if it's worth trying without a front glass/plastic cover.

If you have any concerns at all about how the LED will be treated, go with the Cree XR-E. It has a hard glass dome, as opposed to the SSC and Rebel, which have soft and easily damageable silicone domes (believe me I know). SSCs and Rebels will need to be shielded from dust and touching, but the Cree will be fine exposed.

 

[orionlion82]

yep!
plastic coke bottle. most people in developing nations can simply just FIND them around (we can to on a long walk)

Nail/wire/string the cap to the celing.

and if a lion attacks it, or the local thugs cut the wire, or there is a large flood, or earthquake, or tsunami, or riot - well, unless youre a nomadic tribe you can allways get SOME kind of wire and being humans we would figure out a way to repair it.


my take?
honestly, its better just to flood the market with cheap, cheap cheap! LED's and let the local populations find the best way to adapt them to how they live - rather than pushing our ideas down their throats...

i mean, so you have to give out a flyer/pamphlet with pictures in case literacy is a problem.
so what?
now people can READ at night. ohh, literacy goes UP!
next thing you know its like hollywood with escalades and AK's and gold chains... errrrr, okay, maybe thats a bit much now...


i havnt lived in a small third world city recently, so trying to estimate from my own perspective would be so much nonsense.

FAILURE is the only option if we are arrogant enough the think our solution will work for something we have no clue about.

the world is such a big place.