Vospad style RGB room lighting

I might be buying a flat soon and would like to light it up vospad stlye http://www.thevospad.com/vospad.htm but before entering into this kind of financial burden i would like to test a smallerscale system in my current bedroom. i would maybe use ten leds in total.

as i cannot drill holes in the floor to put the lights in i was thinking of putting them in the ceiling corner thus directing the light across the ceiling and maybe some of them shooting down towards the floor.

i have found these RGB leds so far, are there any more i dont know of ?
http://www.laminaceramics.com/products/bl4000.aspx
http://www.led-bulbs.com/eShop/10Browseprorgb.asp?Category=Prolightrgb
( the latter favoured as it costs half the price )

are optics required for the colours to blend or they bland even without optics ?

To avoid buying the very expensive rgb dirvers for each led i was thinking of using a high power transformer ( in order to use them with mains voltage ) set to about 3.5V and connecting all leds in parallel. i would then use 3 variable resistors, one for each colour ( each calibrated for the required current range of each colour ) to be able to change the intensity of each colour thus changing the emitted colour of the rgb.

I know that having them all in parallel with one driver may result in a slightly different colour for each led due to binningetc.. but im not that fussy at this point.

What do you guys think ? would it work, any pointers/ideas ?

Thanks

The Quickar people sell what they call the RGB UFO. Can't find it on their website, but there are some on eBay. I have one coming in the mail. When it gets here I'm going to mount it in a torch with three rheostats, see what I think.

Turns out the UFO is wired backwards. All the dies share a common positive and the LEDs have to be controled on the negative side.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5-NEW-RGB-1-WAT...ryZ66954QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Also:

http://cgi.ebay.com/LEDs-PROLIGHT-1...543595561QQcategoryZ66952QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

no other ideas / suggestions ?

All Luxeon IIIs:
4 Red (448 Lumens at working die temp)
12 Green (864 Lumens at working die temp)
7 Royal Blue (122.5 guesstimated Lumens at working die temp)

From the research I did:
30% red + 59% green + 11% blue = white (Source: http://repairfaq.cis.upenn.edu/sam/icets/basicp.htm )

This is a project I started about 6 months ago and have yet to finish.
It's to be powered by an ATX power supply, but due to most of the emitter slugs being connected together (d'oh!), powering the unit turned out more difficult that I had planned.

http://www.emanator.demon.co.uk/bigclive/rgb.htm
The software is based off the old software once found in the above link. He removed the source code for some reason.
Hardware (other than power supply) is pretty simple:
PIC12F** (68 iirc), switching -> MOSFET, driving -> each color channel.

With each color on @ 100% duty cycle, it's around 95 watts of blinding white light. From a few feet away, looking straight into it is like looking at an arc welder...


Here it is only the (royal) blue channel on @ 100% duty cycle, next to a 300watt halogen lamp (Note, the lamp was old and had browned alittle on the inside, but was still around 70% as bright as a new lamp).

As far as power supplies go, computer power supplies are hard to beat.
Good luck!


-Ross

that's a nice array of luxes but i was looking for a smaller scale apparatus, i.e. RGB on one 1W - 5W led and a few of those spread around the room.
besides what you call pretty simple hardware is unknown language to me.
good tip about the power supply though, thanks for that.

Hi. I am about to place an order for a batch of the Lamina Ceramics LEDs here so I you want to piggy back off this, you are welcome to. I plan to light a room with LEDs also

Thanks hotbeam.
But you dont have the RGB option
do you have any idea if the 30 deg. optics will blend the colors properly without getting the multi colored fringes ?
also what would the prices be for 2 rgb leds and 2 30 deg. optics

Rossitron - that's the coolest looking thing I've seen in a while! Did you get all the emitters isolated from each other? I'm guessing so if it's working. So every lux full on does indeed produce a perfect white? That's cool you got it in one shot!!! Make sure to secure the wires exiting to the HS some how so a firm tug doesn't rip the leads off the luxeons!!!

Some sort of common diffusing optic would likely do allright for blending the colors together if you're using a RGB source.

I'm not sure how best to control something like that. DC is best for LEDs. If you have a heavy-duty regulated DC voltage supply and use some limiting resistors and pots for each channel. Limiting resistors control maximum current, pots mix R, G, & B levels.

idleprocess said:

Some sort of common diffusing optic would likely do allright for blending the colors together if you're using a RGB source.

I'm not sure how best to control something like that. DC is best for LEDs. If you have a heavy-duty regulated DC voltage supply and use some limiting resistors and pots for each channel. Limiting resistors control maximum current, pots mix R, G, & B levels.

Click to expand...

that's what i was thinkig. obviously a programmable or cycling controller would be nice but im not that electronic.

Amonra said:

Thanks hotbeam.
But you dont have the RGB option
do you have any idea if the 30 deg. optics will blend the colors properly without getting the multi colored fringes ?
also what would the prices be for 2 rgb leds and 2 30 deg. optics

Click to expand...

Hi Amonra
I won't be going down the RGB option for just the reason you mentioned. The colours from RGB mixing will never be as good as a solid colour IMHO. I'll be going for the BL3000 4300K. That will give a nice warm 26W light. I will be using a 90-264VAC CC transformer to drive the BL3000. Well... multiple transformers to drive multiple BL3000's

Something else you might try is to get a 3 watt heat sink and mount on it one red, one blue, and one green LED, each of them a one watter. You would need to run the light through a mixer or diffuser.

I'm trying to figure if you could use four conductor phone wire to power it all. For points on style, you could give each unit a phone jack and have them just plug in and out of the wire. Are you going to run molding around the ceiling to hide the wires?

UV Too?

You know, you could add some UV LEDs to each unit, you'd have to add a fourth power line and controller. This would give you a broader range for colors and effects.