Meet the Triple Gun

[egghead2004]

So I'm working on a night time security thing at my house. DW wants motion sensors and lights. Well, I think I found part B...

Well here is the prototype Triple Gun LED night light.

Rather large tubes, but need it to remove the heat from the LEDs.
This isn't a complete project, mounting system, weather proofing, and better glue for the reflectors will complete.

See what the reflector does? Makes a big difference in concentrating the light to where you want it. I need to find a better glue though. the basic hot glue melts.

See how the reflector does not allow light scatter which is wasted energy.

So how about 3600 lumens give or take, with 56 watts? What can it do with only 1 reflector mounted?

Remember my shed 80' away? This is from last fall, 8 LEDs on a heatsink.

Well the Triple Gun focuses the light a bit better...

This one shows the 6 smaller LEDs above the hoop, along with the new triple gun over powering.

So if you were sneaking up on a house and this hit you from 130' away instantly, would you continue on or leave? Oh, and there will be more than one...

 

[andersonEE]

Egghead, I love reading your build threads. This is awesome...can't wait to see it finished.

 

[richpalm]

Nice! More specifics... what are you using for a power supply?

Rich

 

[egghead2004]

The driver is a Meanwell LPC 60 - 1400. Great driver, but the prices are nuts $27 for the driver..OK, but $11 to ship an 8 ounce power supply? There has to be a cheaper way to get drivers.

I wonder if a group but could help.

 

[andersonEE]

That price actually sounds pretty reasonable...where did you get it? You can get the LPC-60-1050 from rapidled.com for $26 + $6 shipping but that is not too much cheaper. And rapidled is the cheapest place I know of (for small quantities) to get meanwell drivers in the US.

The only thing I don't like about Meanwell drivers is the long (>3s) startup time.

 

[cwloo]

That's birdgelux C1202 or C802 ?

 

[egghead2004]

Those are 802 neutrals (4100k). Wonder what the Cool 802s would do? I like the higher CRI, I'll sacrifice a few lumens for color.
BTW it is almost done, should have finish pics this afternoon.

 

[netprince]

I like your project. Looking forward to see where it goes. subscribed...

 

[egghead2004]

It's been running for an hour and the tubes are only warm to the touch.
Maybe I could have gone with 6" instead of 7"

BRIGHT!
Going to Mount on the house now, will supply beam shots later.

 

[purduephotog]

Wows.

So those aren't solid aluminum round bar stock then, they're hollow tube/pipe? How thick is the chunk of aluminum behind the bridgelux?

It appears to me that you have drilled/tapped the center hole for screws to attach the coverglass- was that an experiment then?

Do you have a thermal fan/ anything in there to deregulate them if they overheat?

I am very very impressed.

 

[herosemblem]

Very neat design!
When faced with these lights, I would not retreat. I would continue, knowing that the house contains more cool gadgets.

 

[egghead2004]

LOL good point herosemblem

Got home from Chinese restaurant and DW started laughing. She said I was insane, like i am trying to light up Fenway Park.

Here we go...

Aluminum tubing.
Aluminum bar stock behind the LEDs
Meanwell driver.
and the holes you see in the middle gun are a mistake...I drilled them on the wrong side.
The Meanwell came from Watts.

 

[egghead2004]

Mounted, but not hardwired yet, just using an extension cord for now.

Here is the 12v lights, just for some accents.

OK, so walk up the driveway and...

From the porch

High view from the light.

And the cutoff, this is from stray light, not direct from the reflector. Light is cut off due to the corner of the house.

 

[blasterman]

As per above, I'm concerned about the thickness of the metal the the LED's are mounted on and how it interfaces the external tube. I'm assuming it's at least 1/4", but how do the circular mounts make contact with the tube? How is the surface temp of the circulare mounts after it's been running for awhile?

This kind of reminds of the monster reef light Evilc66 just built using four 1202 neutrals and I believe the same reflectors.

 

[shortstack]

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the "rod" (inside the tube) goes almost all the way back? Also guessing that he used some thermal adhesive or thermal compound?

 

[yuandrew]

Now you need to get one of those X-10 motion detector floodlights (I have one), take the sensor part off, and wire it up.

It has a very loud heavy-duty relay and the "CLUNK!" plus the sudden shower of bright light should scare many would be intruders away.

 

[pck50]

Jeepers looks like a Nuclear reactor, LOL
Very nice and most impressive, My hat goes off to you!
Keep up the great work!

 

[egghead2004]

The stars are mounted to 3" round by 1" deep chunk of aluminum. It telescopes perfectly in the outer tube. I ran these for 3 hours and the tubes were very warm, not hot. The solid stock where the stars mount felt the same, so there is enough contact for heat transfer. I do need to buy an infrared thermometer.
Working on the second one now.

Hey yuandrew, How are those X10 systems? I'm thinking of buying something like that or a perimeter alarm. Not sure which way to go yet.

 

[shortstack]

just out of curiosity where did you purchase the aluminum?

 

[blasterman]

The solid stock where the stars mount felt the same, so there is enough contact for heat transfer. I do need to buy an infrared thermometer.

Nah, all you need is a thermal probe on a multimeter. Bridgelux puts a test mark on their emitters and this is where you check the 'case temp'. Sounds like it's covered though. Buggers put out some heat though.