LED halogen floodlight replacement

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta
I am currently using 4pcs. of 500W halogen flood lights to light up the sign and interior of our showroom during the night and i have just realised that these lights cost me about 60 $ a month to run which is a bit too much. (electricity costs 0.16$ per KWh here and these bulbs run for 6 hours a day)

i could use 300W or 150W halogen bulbs to bring down the running costs but still they are fragile and unreliable, their colour is ugly and still cost a bit much to run.

So i was thinking of using LED power in this application to reduce running costs and get a nicer more noticable white light color.

preferably i will not use luxeons due to the thermal issues, besides, 5mm LED's seem to be more efficient these days. also because i do not need throw but flood.

i am therefore thinking of using 400pcs. of 5mm wide angle LED's per unit therefore having a total of approx 2,800 lumens per unit ( using the current approximation of 7 Lumens per latest 5mm LED ).
i do not know how many lumens a 500W halogen flood light emits but 2,800 lumens seem like plenty for my use.

now if i run them in a series-parallel configuration @ 12 Volts and 30 mA each, that would be approx 50W per unit and cost me approx 6 $ a month for all 4 units. correct me if i'm wrong.

so my question is: where do i buy 1600 pcs. ( maybe even more ) of the latest, brightest, whitest ( not yellowish or bluish ), wide angle ( 80 - 100 deg. ) 5mm LED's ?

EDIT: they must be very well priced too... and have agood lumen maintenance.

Thanks
 
Last edited:

cheapo

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 5, 2005
Messages
3,326
i would probably get them from China... they have them cheap.

-David
 

3rd_shift

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 9, 2004
Messages
3,337
Location
DFW. TX. U.S.A. Earth
Nichia may be your best bet for T5 leds.
The new cs models are puttng out around 60-70 lumens per watt.
Prices have been around 55 cents per piece in quantities of 100 thus far.
Should be less in higher quantities.
:thinking: I used to know the link to thier website on ordering these....
Just do a google search for Nichia leds.

With this many leds, heat will still be the enemy though.

Another possibility may be in using Compact flourescent, or Metal Halide HID lighting for something like that.
Compact flourescent is usually around 60-70 lumens per watt and still getting better.
HID metal halides are around 100+ lumens per watt for good fixtures when they are new.
Your halogens are only around 15-20 lumens per watt.

Full sized flourescents (F40's F96's etc.. are nearing 100 lumens per watt and often stay nearly that efficeint from beginning to end of thier service lives.
They are often cheaper too if not exposed to extreme climate, or weather conditions.
 

3rd_shift

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 9, 2004
Messages
3,337
Location
DFW. TX. U.S.A. Earth
cheapo said:
i would probably get them from China... they have them cheap.

-David

Many of the chinese leds have not been lasting very long though.
They are supposed to last 100,000 hours, but they just don't for some reason.
Even 1000 hours is proving elusive for most of the Chinese leds.
Now, as for Luxeon3 leds, that's another story.
These are holding up much better.
These also come in 170 degree wide angle to start with.
They are also a lot easier and less tedious to mount to a large aluminum block, and then wire up thanks to thier large soldering star pads.
You will want stars, not emitters, for ease of mounting them all.
They can be Arctic Alumina glued and/or screwed on to a finned aluminum block.
Many nightclubs are going the Luxeon3 route for colored lighting lately too.
 

LumenHound

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 16, 2005
Messages
1,797
Location
Toronto
Running some of the low cost 5mm leds at 30 milliamps may drastically reduce their lifespan. Stick with leds from top quality manufacturers if you decide to go down this road.

How long do you estimate it will take to solder all 1600 leds onto the 4 circuit boards?
 

enLIGHTenment

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 5, 2005
Messages
814
Location
Ottawa, Canada
Amonra said:
i do not know how many lumens a 500W halogen flood light emits but 2,800 lumens seem like plenty for my use.

Depending on bulb type, one 500W halogen can put out upwards of 8000 to 11000 lumens.

Upgrading the entire fixture would require on the order of 5000 LEDs. HID is much more cost effective for this level of output.
 

photo2000a

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 25, 2005
Messages
138
Location
ny
although i don't have my office magazines with me, their are a few led companies that make led boards for sign lighting and have normal color ballance

they are square board like modules and ready to go quite brite and nice

i just can't think of the name of them but certian it's in a few of my magazines i'll post it here if i dig it up but try to goggle a few of the big led firms in mean time
 

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta
Cheapo: yep but it seems they would not survive for very long.

3rd shift: i do have some nichia CS leds but they are a bit too yellow for my liking and the beam is too narrow. as for the luxeons i would need a huge heatsink for 50 lux1 or 20 lux 3. it is true about the easier mounting though, not to mention the much less soldering to do.

lumenhound: i am a very patient man

enlightenment: that is true but the 500w halogens i currently have are already producing much more light than needed. i guess that about 2000 - 3000 lumens of white light will be enough for the required application.

pr5owner: i'd be happy to send you all the LED's and boards for you to solder for me :)

photo200a: it would be great if you could find these as it would save me a lot of soldering.

In the meantime i have soldered 98 LOV 10mm 80,000mcd led's ( the only ones i have at the moment )to a board to test what kind of output i would get, and i must say that it is quite impressive although yellowish in color and with a narrow beam angle they light up a small room nicely. i am currently sanding them with fine sandpaper to diffuse the beam and get a smoother flood. driven at 20mA they produce no heat. they do get a bit warm when driven at 30mA though, so i will stick to 20mA as heat is not desired with 400 tightly packed led's.

i would like to go ahead with LED and not HID or flourescent, mainly for an easthetic reason and that wow factor. an array of hundreds of led's is more eye catching and uncommon ( at least locally ) than flourescent tubes or HID.

i have been weighing my options and came up with these results :

40pcs. RX0H lux1 @ 350mA - 45W - 2000 LUM
18pcs. UX1K lux3 @ 700mA - 47W - 1980 LUM
11pcs. WWOT lux5 @ 700mA - 53W - 2090 LUM
17pcs. Lamina BL-4000 @ 700mA - 90.1W - 2040LUM
19pcs. Lamina BL-2000 @ 420mA- 89.3W - 2052LUM
4pcs. Lamina BL-3000 @ 2.3A- 104W - 2268LUM
400pcs. peak snow led/nichia CS @ 20mA - 25W/27W - 2000LUM

The above calculations have been made using specs from manufacturer datasheets and/or tests carried out by CPF members.

It is therefore quite obvious that the snow/nichia led's are the most efficient of all of the above which is why i would prefer to use them, preferably the snow due to the whiter color. i am aware that snow led's have a short lifetime @30mA but no tests have been made @20mA so im hoping they will live longer. the only problem would be the narrow beam angle.

Other options might be spider LED's which would make for easier soldering, better heat dissipation and generally have wide beam angles but i could not find much data on them and white ones do not seem to be very common.

Any other suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. thanks.
 

Ken_McE

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 16, 2003
Messages
1,687
5 mm LED Track Lighting:

I have some experience building strips of 5 mm LED lights. Not hundreds of LEDs, but dozens anyhow. I chose 5mm so as to avoid heat issues. Something I have found useful is to get a strip of aluminum channel ("U" shaped cross section) and a length of flexible clear plastic tubing that fits snugly into the track. The track I mount anyway I like. When the LEDs are off it just looks like a decorative trim strip, people don't really seem to see it. I like to make it look like part of the molding on the wall.

I build the light into the tube and press fit it into the track when it is ready. Now I can switch out tubes If I have a problem or if I build a better one later. The aluminum track gives them good mechanical protection and a clean enclosure. Because I like a small track, one half inch by one half inch, I have been experimenting with trimming the ends off the 5 mm's so they don't stick out into view.

For the wiring I have a a red and a black wire that run the full length
of the tube and stick out at either end. The LEDs tap into the wires as they need, but don't break the wire. Now you can power it from either end, or chain them at either end, and if LEDs die the circuit is not affected. If you want series-parallel you add a third wire and cut and use it as needed in the tube.



Not to make your life complicated...

but have you considered mixing in some panels of controllable RGB LEDs so you can go with various colors for your displays?


>i do not know how many lumens a 500W halogen flood light
>emits but 2,800 lumens seem like plenty for my use.


According to this site:

http://www.electriciansupplies.com/...1_General_Purpose_>=_150_Watt_Light_Bulbs.htm

they have a 150 watt bulb that produces 2780 lumens. Before you solder all those little devils, why not try a 150 watt bulb and see if its enough light?
 
Last edited:

photo2000a

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 25, 2005
Messages
138
Location
ny
Amonra said:
C



photo200a: it would be great if you could find these as it would save me a lot of soldering.


<<well i looked all around and couldn't find the magazine, even thou i musta read it like within last few dayz so i googled some stuff, dunno if it's useful but best i could do so far hope it might help point you

http://www.marktechopto.com/products/listing.cfm?Drill_Level=Dept_Series&DeptID=3100

http://www.manufacturers.com.tw/electronics/led-panel.html

http://www.ledtronics.com/datasheets/LED_modules.htm

http://www.junduoli.com/eng/xiangsuguan.asp

good luck

Happy new yr
 

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta

LumenHound

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 16, 2005
Messages
1,797
Location
Toronto
At a drive level of 20 ma per led, your array of 98 LOV 80K 10mm leds may only have a useful life of between 1000-2000 hours before they decline to 50% output.

Take a look at the lumen maintenance graphs of various leds from this thread.
 

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta
LumenHound said:
At a drive level of 20 ma per led, your array of 98 LOV 80K 10mm leds may only have a useful life of between 1000-2000 hours before they decline to 50% output.

Take a look at the lumen maintenance graphs of various leds from this thread.

well actually the graph for the LOV is @30mA which would be the max rating for this LED therefore it is being overdriven @30mA. but @20mA it would be a much more 'comfortable' drive level for the LED thus im pretty confident it would last at least 5000 hours.
 

Ken_McE

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jun 16, 2003
Messages
1,687
Amonra said:
they have up to 3930 LUM @ 200W but have you seen the life time only 750 hours. besides that's only 20LUM/W a lux1 can do double that!

I see you have survived New Years. Congratulations! :buddies:

I did not mean to suggest that you should use pokey old incan. bulbs to light the shop. I meant to suggest that you check and see with your own eyes that the proposed new LED setup will be bright enough to satisfy your needs. It would suck mightily to buy parts, solder thousands of connections, find a nice current regulated power power supply, spend a weekend installing all the bits and pieces, and *then* find that you had built a really expensive nightlight... :rant:

I am hoping that as you will post notes and pics on the build as you go. I quite admire the whole project and would be interested to see how you address all the decisions involved. :popcorn:


Regarding LED boards:

The Quickar Electronics people sell boards and spider LEDs for making your own LED strips: http://www.quickar.com/lenses.php?session= (scroll to bottom of page.) They are out of Colorado, USA and Mark the owner is a listmember.

The eBay vendor lck-led sells a variety of preassembled LED strips: http://cgi.ebay.com/7-Thin-LED-Stri...ryZ66952QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I have some of his strips mounted on my car. He is erratic about questions but ships as advertised.

If you are interested I may be able to put you in touch with a sign shop that sold me some preassembled white six inch, six spider LED modules that come set up for 12 V DC. They have a high, bluish-white color temperature. They cost me around $ 4.25 per modules (Euro 3.6). and came with mounting brackets and board-to-board connectors.
 
Last edited:

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta
im pretty confident that if i use 400 of the latest 5mm led's i'd get a pretty decent amount of light. an exmaple of this would be this : https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/101816 and that is only 100led's and most probably not the best led's availble. as i said before i have soldered 100 leds on a board as a test and im pretty happy with the results.

the only problem i have is finding nichia CS or peak snow 29 led's with a wide angle of about 60 - 70 deg. i could otherwise use these https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/94691 though im not so sure they would actually widen the beam.

the ideal led im looking for would be a nichia CS with the advantage of high output and long lifetime/overdrivability but with the color/beam quality of the peak snow 29 and a 60-70 deg beam angle. oh and a cheap price would be nice too. does anyone know if this kind of led exist ?

as for the boards thanks for the links but i will be using commonly found boards as i will be wiring all the led's in paralell since i will be using a 3.5V/8A power supply to run them.

photo2000a: thanks for the links but unfortunately these manufacturers do not seem to be using the best led's around as lumen ratings are a bit low and the prices are a bit high.

i have therefore decided to do this the hard way and solder 1600 led's by hand as it seems that it is the only ( or most affordable ) way to get the brightest most efficient led flood light possible, whilst discovering and learning from my mistakes on the way to my goal. after all that is what being a flashaholic is about i guess.
if only i could find the perfect LED for this application........
 

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta
Good News, i just got to know that the wife of a friend of mine will do all the soldering for me for a small fee. she works as a professional 'solderer' with a local electronics factory but she works at home so she has all d equipment at her house.
This is verrry good news for me. it will save me a lot of time and bad temper not to mention the perfect soldering unlike the pidgeon s**t soldering i do.

who knows i might even build some extra ones now.... or go crazy and do the whole showroom with LED floodlights.

That is IF i find the perfect LED.
 

Opto-King

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 26, 2005
Messages
114
Location
Scandinavia
Hello,
I would go with 1W LED's form Seoul Semiconductors, Lumileds or similar.
Then you do not need so manny + that you will get a loong lifetime.

Most of the white 5mm LEDs only last for about 3-5000 hours, due to that the epoxy and the phosphor breaks down.

Good Luck!
 

Amonra

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
779
Location
Malta
I would like to go with the 5mm led due to the much better efficiency and the fewer heat considerations.

According to some tests carried out on CPF some LED brands will last longer than 3-5000 hours even if overdriven, and i will be riving them to spec @ 20mA.
 
Top