It's Alive!!! MegaWasher

It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Got a hastily slapped together set of Luxeons running from my CKSauce LightWasher. Now we're talking some serious color washing... The pictures are large, read my description page if you're interested. http://home.comcast.net/~hyc_sub1/lwasher/

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Nice! Clever using those 6 conductor modular jacks too.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Thanks, I thought so. They're definitely user-friendly, anyway.
That's a 7ft cable coiled up there, I bought 6 segments of those as well. There will be two strings of 3 modules each coming from the control box, and a loopback plug on the end of each string.

One problem I have right now is the Darlington transistors I'm using have too much gain, even with the base signal going thru a 1K trimmer pot, so I'm going to have to stick a bigger resistor in there to keep the current at safe levels. Exactly how big, I haven't figured out just yet. I'm only running the circuit at 4.5V in these photos; the LightWasher's on-board green and blue LEDs barely get enough juice to light up but the Luxeons all max out. Fortunately the aluminum base is drawing the heat away.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

That one photo looks like purple and red stars... How well do you think a red and rb would mix to make purple in say a car dome light?

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

very nice! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Nicely done!

My LightWashers are jealous. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

re: purple - it really is a Royal Blue Luxeon in that pic, but I guess the red overpowers it. With the power supply at 4.5V, the red is running at about 320mA max, and the blue and green are only at about 270mA so their output isn't as balanced as it could be. I still need to add something to compensate for the lower Vf of the Reds.

For the dome light you can tweak to get the shade of purple you want, you just have to underdrive the red so it balances the blue.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Right on! I've long wanted to play with 3 primary color Luxeons, especially with some kind of control module.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

highlandsun: yeah I just thought it was neat how it looked purple in the pic. If only they made purple!

1) But do you think the 2 luxeons would mix togther well enough in a dome light so that it doesn't color one side of the car blue and the other red?
2) Would using emitters and putting them closer together vs using stars be better?
3) Would LowDome or a HighDome emitters be better for spreading the light out evenly?

Thanks for your help /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

1) Most car dome lights I've seen have a translucent lens that diffuses the light. I'm sure it would work fine.

2) maybe. But even at a distance of one foot, the colors are totally blended. Stars are much easier to use IMO because with the base attached, they're good to go up to 350mA. With emitters, you have to design your own heatsink etc., otherwise limit the drive to 100mA.

3) High Dome has a much wider beam spread. When the idea is to get wide, diffuse lighting, I think HD is the way to go. Also you'll notice that High Domes have superior output specs in general. (They're newer technology than the Low Domes.) I only use High Domes.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Yeah, mine has a lens. I was going to use stars, but now I think I want to get them close together. The top of the seats/your head is closer than one foot to the dome light. I have aluminum plate that is thicker than the star boards that I'll probably use so I'm good for heatsinks.

Weird that HD have a wider spread. I know they work better with optics for focus. Maybe LD's just block a lot of light and HD are really effecient (you can see cleary through them to the die).

Thanks for the info! Now I'm gonna spend more money as I can make purple light now!

I look forward to your finsihed product. I used to have this old round table lamp, that had RGB x-mas bulbs in it, and they were on old fashioned thermal blinkers (much link turnsignal blinkers) and they would all turn on/off at random and made every color of the rainbow. Can't wait to see your version!!

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

I finished soldering the third module this afternoon and took a few more photos with everything lit. (I've added links to the bottom of the web page.) I may not build the other three modules just yet, because these are already bright enough to color my entire living room ceiling even in daylight. Not bad for only about 6-8W. The CKSauce unit draws 3W when plugged into AC. Ridiculous in comparison.

This is a one-off for my friend's living room; I wasn't planning to make this into something to sell. Way too expensive, and I suck at soldering so I don't want to have to do too much more of this! However, I'll post the complete parts list and prices when I'm done if you want to build your own. (In fact, I posted a preliminary parts list somewhere on this board a week or so ago. Need to update it because I'm changing out some of the resistors and transistors as I fine tune the drive current.)

The biggest cost is the Luxeons of course, at $260-something for 18. The next is the 12V 2.5A power supply at around $45. Everything after that is pretty trivial. If I keep it at only three modules, a 12V 1A wallwart will be plenty, and those are really cheap.

I've ordered 3 other transistors (in TO126 cases) since I think the current ones may overheat. The ones I just ordered are rated to dissipate up to 10W without an additional heatsink. Pretty rad. DigiKey 2SA0963-ND.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Oh, as far as the beam diffusion - I took a white sheet of paper and held it up in front of an LED cluster. At 1-2 inches distance you can tell there are two different spots of color, but further than that it's a smooth blend.

Of course, whenever something's blocking the light, you'll see multi-colored shadows, so if that bugs you I guess the emitter's not a bad idea. That'll minimize the effect.

These aluminum bases get pretty warm even though none of the Stars are being overdriven. I guess SuperGlue isn't such a bad thermal conductor when it's in a thin layer.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

OK, this is kind of an off-the-wall question but...

As I was testing (playing with) the lights tonight, I saw a small insect fly towards the LEDs. Does anyone have any idea how insect vision is affected by intense point-sources of light? I.e., a Luxeon has laser-safety warnings associated with it; presumably if we stared straight into it long enough it would do permanent retina damage. What does it take to blind a bug?

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

I don't know about insects but I do encounter rabbits around my house at night. Each time with my SNII shining straight at them while walking towards them, the closest that I have ever got to them was only about 20 feet before they bolt. I normally shine at them for a while and then slowly walk towards them but every single time they take off before I get to them. It could be just natural instinct that they bolt as they see the light coming closer and closer or them big ol' ears hearing me coming in closer. Dunno, I'm no rabbitologist /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif.

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Cool!

Strange, but definitely cool. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Wilkey

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

I've shone a laser (red) pointer on a fly before and then got real close to it and then took it off. It coulnd't see me. I just sat there for a while before it could see and fly off.

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That's cool Isaac, thanks for the info. I'll have to dig out my laser pointer too now...

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Just a quick update. I've added 5 new photos at the bottom of the page, showing the approach I'm using for a diffusion lens. I took the translucent lids from some plastic containers and used a heat gun to form them into a spherical lens. It's turned out rather well, I think.

http://home.comcast.net/~hyc_sub1/lwasher/

I also managed to get a near-perfect white by limiting the red to 100mA while allowing the green and blue to run up to 450mA each. (See the last photo link.)

Re: It\'s Alive!!! MegaWasher

Nice. The plastic lid's do a good job at colimating the light together. The white is really conecntrated in the one on the upper right. Any chance at making a .mpg of this in action when it's finished?!