Safe Light

[Citori]

I just took delivery of a new, larger, safe and I'm going to need some interior lights. To avoid drilling a hole in the thing I'm thinking a Micropuck and a few 1W Luxeons would do the trick.

Can a decent flood beam be had at the range of a couple of feet? Should I use HD, LD, or SE Stars? Would I be forced to use any optics?

I can handle soldering everything together and getting power to the puck and adding in a door switch and such, just don't know much about the different Luxeons.

 

[gwbaltzell]

I suggest changing the subject to: Light for a Safe
Other, like myself, may think this is a darkroom question!

George

 

[Steelwolf]

Wow, how big is this safe anyways? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif There are many things you can do. One of the simplest would be to create a string with a bunch of wide angle 5mm LEDs, maybe 120deg. Wire them in parallel. Power it with 3 alkaline cells and use a resistor of maybe 10R in series.

Or you can power the string with the micropuck. Just remember that the micropuck puts out 350mA when fresh and you want to divide that among the LEDs so that each gets between 20mA and 30mA, so probably 14 LEDs in each string.

If you decide to go with Luxeons, use high domes. The spec sheets say it has 140deg viewing angle. The low domes have 110deg viewing angle. No need to use optics. Optics are only if you want to tighten the beam.

 

[paulr]

Where is the power going to come from? Batteries? AC? If AC, why not just use some compact fluorescent bulbs? Either way, why do you want to mess with micropucks, which are voltage step-up devices? Just supply enough voltage, and use limiting resistors to control current.

 

[Citori]

Batteries. The safe doesn't have any holes leading to the outside and I don't want to put any in it. I'd actually like to use 123s since I keep so many around.

It is 36" deep, 56" wide, and 72" tall. I was thinking of hiding LEDs in the walls, which are carpeted plywood. I think there is enough room to have them sit flush with the wall.

Not exactly sure why I was thinking of using pucks, other than convenience. Maybe a dozen 5mm LEDs would let me put light in more places.

 

[Marked]

The safe doesn't have any bolt down holes in the bottom of it?

Have you thought about led strip lighting for the safe?
There is probley an inside edge a led strip could be mounted out of sigh nicely.

 

[Bravo25]

It would be kind of unusual to not have at least bolt down holes. Mine is a Winchester safe of about the same size, only the walls are velour covered sheetrock for fire resistance. I drilled a 1/4 in hole in the back inserted a rubber gromet, and put a rope light all the way around the door. I used a refrigerator switch for activation, and it works great. The rope light will light the whole interior regardless of shelf placement. I also keep one of the battery operated "tap" lights in there for power failures.

 

[gadget_lover]

I can see avoiding holes if it is a "Fire Safe" or "Media Safe". You don't want excess metal protruding through the fireproofing.

I agree with Bravo that a refrigerator switch is essential to prevent the possibility of the batteries running down. Leaking cells and gas buildup are NOT good things in a safe. You can also use a toggle switch mounted at an angle so that the door pushes it to the off position when closed.

5mm Nichias can be hidden under every shelf, eliminating shadows. You can test the locations with two sided tape before committing to the installation.

Daniel

 

[INRETECH]

We are coming out with a LED StripLight for just such an application, check our webpage in a couple of days

 

[Bravo25]

I wasn't to concerned with a 1/4 hole at the bottom of the safe compromising the heat integrity. I did have someone recomend putting a couple of bottles of water on the top shelf. Then if it got hot enough to melt the plastic, the water would help with cooling the contents.

 

[UK Owl]

[ QUOTE ]
Bravo25 said:
... I drilled a 1/4 in hole in the back inserted a rubber gromet, and ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Cant be much of a safe if YOU can drill it.

It was either a firechest, and you destroyed the fire proof rating by drilling it.

OR

It was a VERY poor quality 'Safe'.

Any semi-reasonable quality safe will be resistant to drilling.

 

[Bravo25]

[ QUOTE ]
UK Owl said:
[ QUOTE ]
Bravo25 said:
... I drilled a 1/4 in hole in the back inserted a rubber gromet, and ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Cant be much of a safe if YOU can drill it.

It was either a firechest, and you destroyed the fire proof rating by drilling it.

OR

It was a VERY poor quality 'Safe'.

Any semi-reasonable quality safe will be resistant to drilling.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is no truth to that at all. First the back of almost any safe is easier to drill than the front. Unless you are talking a bank vault. The fire resistance comes from the sheetrock lining. Of course you could always take a saw, and cut the back off. If you could move it away from the wall. Considering it is bolted to the floor on the inside, the trouble, and the noise generated would make this an almost impossible task.
Even if you did manage to drill the hardened door it has an automatic overide lock to keep the mechanism from unlocking the safe. The only real way that a 1/4" hole at the botoom is going to compromise the heat resistance any real amount is if you put a blow torch into the hole. I also have inside a small fire resistant closet safe for the most important documents, and media.

 

[INRETECH]

Most of the Liberty safes already have a "utility" hole in the back to allow for running electrity into the safe

They run lighting and de-humidifiers inside the safe

 

[gadget_lover]

Fireproof safes are typically not very difficult to drill if all you need are small holes. The doors are typically MUCH harder to get through than the sides. The fire resistance can come from several mechanisms including sheetrock and cement with a high water content.

Safes are graded by how many MINUTES it takes a professional safe mechanic to open using specific sets of tools. Fire safes are rated on how long they will remain below a certain temperature. That temperature is high enough to destroy computer discs, CR-ROMs, etc. It's not high enough for the paper to catch fire.

In the event of a house fire, it's suprising what does and does not survive. The temperatures get If you do run a wire through a hole, use wires as small as possible and seal the hole with fire block putty.

Daniel

 

[Marked]

Safes are rated with diffrent rateings.
http://ulstandardsinfonet.ul.com/scopes/0687.html
http://ulstandardsinfonet.ul.com/scopes/0072.html
Don't confuse a fire safe as haveing burglary-resistant cause it dosn't need to.

 

[Marked]

[ QUOTE ]
INRETECH said:
We are coming out with a LED StripLight for just such an application, check our webpage in a couple of days


[/ QUOTE ]
I would like info on that.

 

[Citori]

I'll check out the Inretech strip when it comes out, might be what I'm looking for.

This safe doesn't have any holes anywhere. Bolt down holes wouldn't really do any good unless I sank it into a slab, if it ever got off balance enough to tip over it would probably pull the floor up along with whatever I used to anchor it. I ordered it as heavy as the guy could make it.

 

[INRETECH]

The gun safes that I last saw at the last show

http://www.libertysafe.com/safe_Lincoln.lasso

had nice soft padding inside and then behind that, several layers of fireboard, which you could easily mount sheetrock screws into - the LEDSTRIP is not very heavy at all

 

[Marked]

Those safes don't even have a UL safe rateing. Rated as residential security containers.

Wouldn't some double stick tape work for mounting the ledstrip?

 

[Bravo25]

[ QUOTE ]
Marked said:
Those safes don't even have a UL safe rateing. Rated as residential security containers.



[/ QUOTE ]

Im not sure that is exactly right. I have one almost identical to it, only with a winchester name on it, and that little silver tag on the door edge is a "UL Listed" tag. A lot of these safes come from one manufacturer in texas, the name of which escapes me at this moment. I had to order some touch up paint for mine, and that is how I found this out.