What's the best LED for lighting a room?

[CTR]

As above, I'm looking for the best LED emitter to light up some rooms in our flat.

I am playing around with some Solar Panels which I'm going to use to charge some car batteries, and run my LED room lighting off it. I plan to make clusters of these emitters per room so I will need some heat sink for them as well.

I would like to reproduce the warm lighting effect with a good and smooth light output. As the LEDs will be quite intense to look at, I may use a translucent shade or diffuser as well.

Does anyone have experience of working on a project like this? Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[Gunner12]

McGizmo has pretty much converted his entire house to LEDs, so he might be able to help you.

Check here for tints.

 

[CTR]

Wow, thats fantastic, thanks for showing me the link... :twothumbs

 

[CTR]

EDIT: Double post!

 

[Changchung]

Remember post your pics about your proyect goes...:twothumbs

 

[James Jackson]

I have three 5-watt MR-16 LED lights that are installed in a track lighting on the wall.

They are aimed into my living room, and have been working like this - running off of a 17Ah battery - being charged in the daytime by a 21-watt solar panel (and PWM charge-controller) - for about a year now.

I have an LVD/IR switch circuit that helps to protect the battery from over-discharge - but it hasn't ever kicked in while using the lights at night.

The total light output from the 3 5-watt LEDs is about 450 lumens, and it is enough light to see and read by. The wife is also able to see to wash dishes in the kitchen which is about 12-feet away from the source.

Good Luck,

James Jackson
Oztronics

 

[1pt21]

McGizmo has pretty much converted his entire house to LEDs, so he might be able to help you.

Check here for tints.

WOW, that may be the coolest thing I have ever seen!! Seriously I just spent over an hour at that page checking out some of those configurations. Thanks a lot for the link Gunner!!!

--Paul

 

[CTR]

I have three 5-watt MR-16 LED lights that are installed in a track lighting on the wall.

They are aimed into my living room, and have been working like this - running off of a 17Ah battery - being charged in the daytime by a 21-watt solar panel (and PWM charge-controller) - for about a year now.

I have an LVD/IR switch circuit that helps to protect the battery from over-discharge - but it hasn't ever kicked in while using the lights at night.

The total light output from the 3 5-watt LEDs is about 450 lumens, and it is enough light to see and read by. The wife is also able to see to wash dishes in the kitchen which is about 12-feet away from the source.

Good Luck,

James Jackson
Oztronics

I'm thinking of having a similar setup but I don't have a 21W solar panel. I have 2 13W panels but I was intending to only use one of them to charge the battery.

We don't have a great deal of sunshine in the UK but being in a top floor apartment we have can make the best use of what we have. I figured that with LEDs getting more efficient, I would probably get away with a lower power solar panel i.e. 10-15W panel to provide power for a cluster of LEDs.

Is the charge controller absolutely necessary? I have a number of high voltage uni-direction diodes which I was hoping would prevent reverse charging when it gets dull outside.

Do you have any photos of your setup? I'm quite interested in seeing what others have done.