In my never ending quest to put luxeons where ever I can, I targeted the trunk of my car next. The trunk of my Nissan Maxima is lit up by a single, sickly, ugly yellow incandescent bulb. According to the manual, the bulb is a 3.4W bulb, I measured it at 240mA at 12V (2.8W).
Here's what the trunk looks like under it's mighty output (I put the white plastic boxes in as subjects, since the trunk is lined in black cloth):
(camera set to ISO400, F 2.0, 1/2s exposure)
I prepped 3 1W luxeons by AA'ing them each to a 3" long piece of 1"x1/16" aluminum bar stock. The regulator is an LMS1587-ADJ linear regulator that works just like an LM317 - except the dropout voltage is 1.2V at maximum current (3A), but at 350mA (which is what I run this at), the dropout voltage is around 0.8V. In current mode, this makes this regulator have a headroom of about 2V total (much less than the 3-4V that a similar LM317 setup would need).
And *drumroll* here's the results, with all 3 luxeons running at 350mA (probably the first time I've run a luxeon at rated current /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif ) - the camera settings are identical to the first trunk shot above:
Notice a difference? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
And just for fun, here's an in-trunk panorama of the installation. This is looking up at the trunk roof, forward towards the front of the car.
(click for a larger version)
You can see where I mounted the plates with the LEDs - I drilled small holes and used self tapping screws to secure them and the regulator board into place. The regulator board is the black/copper square with the wires coming out of it. The white boxes are the seat belts for the back seats; the rods, torsion bars that help lift the trunk lid.
The plastic dome thingy is where the original bulb was. I double-folded the wire ends, soldered them into a blob, and stuck them into the bulb socket contacts - no modification needed here. I could remove these lights, and the only thing that would be left would be 8 extra holes in the sheet metal. Finally, to protect things from shuffling cargo, all the wires are neatly zip tied up and out of harms way.
Here's what the trunk looks like under it's mighty output (I put the white plastic boxes in as subjects, since the trunk is lined in black cloth):
(camera set to ISO400, F 2.0, 1/2s exposure)
I prepped 3 1W luxeons by AA'ing them each to a 3" long piece of 1"x1/16" aluminum bar stock. The regulator is an LMS1587-ADJ linear regulator that works just like an LM317 - except the dropout voltage is 1.2V at maximum current (3A), but at 350mA (which is what I run this at), the dropout voltage is around 0.8V. In current mode, this makes this regulator have a headroom of about 2V total (much less than the 3-4V that a similar LM317 setup would need).
And *drumroll* here's the results, with all 3 luxeons running at 350mA (probably the first time I've run a luxeon at rated current /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif ) - the camera settings are identical to the first trunk shot above:
Notice a difference? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
And just for fun, here's an in-trunk panorama of the installation. This is looking up at the trunk roof, forward towards the front of the car.
(click for a larger version)
You can see where I mounted the plates with the LEDs - I drilled small holes and used self tapping screws to secure them and the regulator board into place. The regulator board is the black/copper square with the wires coming out of it. The white boxes are the seat belts for the back seats; the rods, torsion bars that help lift the trunk lid.
The plastic dome thingy is where the original bulb was. I double-folded the wire ends, soldered them into a blob, and stuck them into the bulb socket contacts - no modification needed here. I could remove these lights, and the only thing that would be left would be 8 extra holes in the sheet metal. Finally, to protect things from shuffling cargo, all the wires are neatly zip tied up and out of harms way.