Your help and thoughts on building a true wall of light

I have been interested in building a wall of light that uses many LEDs (either white or red, probably 5mm) that are evenly spaced apart. I want it to be something that can hang on a wall or stand up on its own. I want the LEDs to be either running at their specs, or be underdriven. Probably using a standard outlet plug would be best to supply the power, so I could just plug it in.

The problem is, however, I have no LED modding experience. Can someone point me the in right direction with this? Even things that may seem obvious to you... as I don't have much of an idea on this sort of thing. Thanks.

umm... a OLED TV?

HI Iam,

Could you give us the following info so we can better help.

1. How big and bright of a wall do you want. Lumens/dimension
2. How small does the light have to be.
3. How much is the allocated funds for the projected.

Thanks, I want to pay less than $100 for the project. Possibly having a 15 x 15 square of 5mm LEDs about 2 inches apart, so possibly close to 3 x 3 feet in total size. Not quite sure on the brightness, maybe around 500 lumens. I am very flexible with everything: the shape, number of LEDs, brightness, and cost. Is this realistic?

It looks like there might not be much interest in this light... anyone?

I'm interested but am unsure of logistics. Don (McGizmo) did some wild things with LED's in his house.

I'm interested to see how our pro's attack it

About 5 or 6 Cree XR-E LEDs will get to the lumens you want.

PM McGizmo about this. I have seen a wall sconce that he made that used LEDs.

Manzerick said:

I'm interested but am unsure of logistics. Don (McGizmo) did some wild things with LED's in his house.

I'm interested to see how our pro's attack it

Click to expand...

Hehe, beat me to it!

Great minds think alike. :laughing:

I'm building a house and would like to explore something like a "wall of light" for use as the sole (maybe) lighting source in a small bathroom. I've seen material on electroluminescent panels, but I'm not sure they're bright enough and they have a ~15 sec. warmup time. What can be done with other technologies, esp. LEDs?

15x15 is 225 LEDs. At 10 or 20 cents each (ebay prices) that is $22.50 or $45 for the LEDs.

At rated current each LED is about 0.1 watt so you will need 22.5 watts to power them. With a perfect LED driver a 12V by 2Amp power supply would be sufficient. If you use resistors to limit the current you may need 50 to 100% more to account for the wasted power. You also need to decide if you want to power them from DC or AC. DC avoids flicker but will cost more to do.

Get some peg board from the local lumber store, stuff the LEDs in a nice grid, put on some sides to make a nice box (say 2 or 3" thick) and cover with opaque plexiglas to have smooth(er) lighting. Say another $20.

So that leaves you with $35 or more for the power supply. Should be feasible.

Greg

iamerror said:

Thanks, I want to pay less than $100 for the project. Possibly having a 15 x 15 square of 5mm LEDs about 2 inches apart, so possibly close to 3 x 3 feet in total size. Not quite sure on the brightness, maybe around 500 lumens. I am very flexible with everything: the shape, number of LEDs, brightness, and cost. Is this realistic?

Click to expand...

There's always Lamina. Might bump the cost up out of range, though.

Thanks for the replies. Using Crees would be an option, would that make the project more expensive? I am confused on the Lamina product, what type of LEDs are they using?

I was not even thinking about AC or DC. Are there any other advantages of DC besides losing flicker? How much more would it cost?

I'm a little fuzzy on the primary goal here. Are you after an art piece? Trying for smooth ilumination? Just want a fun and efficient light? I will throw a few suggestions into the thread in the hope that one of them may be of use to you.

What greg_in_canada is describing is a (modified) cavity light, such as is used in modern LED exit signs. If you build it ether paint the pegboard and inner sides gloss white or cover them with mylar or foil. I should mention that where he says "opaque plexiglas" I believe he meant a transluscent or milky plexiglass. For that matter, real glass would work too, or a piece of diffusion grid like they use in drop in ceiling lights. The strength of a cavity light is that it tends to even out the light from discrete sources into a more uniform illumination.

The Ceelight people http://ceelite.com/ specialize in high output, white EL panels, but I don't think it'll match with your budget. Don't know about startup time.

After christmas you may be able to pick up unsold commercial LED lights for reasonable prices, rework them for your project. I think that LED ropelights might also work for you. You could roll them in a neat coil with the LEDs pointing towards you, or run them around the edges of the wall pointing towards the center.

You can also create a wall of light by mounting your light heads up by the ceiling and letting them wash down along the wall. You can run a board along in front of them to hide the technical bits. You could also make free standing units that stand along either side of the wall, move them around as you like. A light reflective paint on the wall would help.

Hope something here is useful.

My goal would probably be a little of each of the things you said. It is mainly for fun and to complete a light for myself. I have considered buying ropelights also, which would be much easier.

You are right. I meant to say transluscent plexiglass.

Greg

Ken_McE said:

What greg_in_canada is describing is a (modified) cavity light, such as is used in modern LED exit signs. If you build it ether paint the pegboard and inner sides gloss white or cover them with mylar or foil. I should mention that where he says "opaque plexiglas" I believe he meant a transluscent or milky plexiglass. For that matter, real glass would work too, or a piece of diffusion grid like they use in drop in ceiling lights. The strength of a cavity light is that it tends to even out the light from discrete sources into a more uniform illumination.

Click to expand...