Thread: Cool LED Lamp I Made Today

That's really cool, actually. Yes, do post up what you did.

Her name is Tesla and she's always messing with the electricity.

you should post the things you made for your camera too. i have the perfect example of why they are cool tonight. every time i tried to get really close he jumped on the camera lol. he's completely lost in the lens shadow on a few shots.

spider lost in the dreaded macro shadow.

Originally Posted by Richard Gears

Can you construct a functional Growlight using those LED's?

I don't think they give off the right wavelength, being in the business I am I get a lot of "recreational agriculturists", I recall research 12v LED's for growlight use....we do have 12v solar power friendly CFL's that would work.....

Weirdos!

Originally Posted by Richard Gears

Can you construct a functional Growlight using those LED's?

yes it can be done.

Some people even use CFs, but they are not the best for any stage of growth.

Originally Posted by Mudge

Some people even use CFs, but they are not the best for any stage of growth.

only good for seedlings

Originally Posted by My weener Burns

Weirdos!

damn ponys bro

Get a pretty bottle.



Assemble your l.e.d. lights on a thin, sturdy length of plastic or something (I used a tiny glass rod). Make sure it's small enough so it will fit in the opening of the bottle after having leds and wire strapped to it. With the leds and resistors I used I found that if I made a series connection of 3 bulbs it was noticeably dimmer than a series of 2.



Leave some space between your bottom led and the bottom of your post.



Find a base that you think goes good with your bottle. I used a dremel tool and cut out the battery/time mechanism holder of a broken clock and removed the guts from it. Since it already had a hole in the middle of it I didn't have to drill one. Use whatever you wan as long as it's deep enough to fit the battery inside, make a hole for your wires, and cut out another hole on the side somewhere for a power switch.



I sanded all the sides of it to try and disguise that it had been cut.



Use a dremel tool, or something of the sorts, with diamond bits to drill out a hole in the bottom of your bottle. Make the hole large enough so your wires and the bottom of your post can easily fit into it. Twist the positive and negative wires together and tie some heavy string or another piece of wire that's long enough for you stick down in the top of the bottle, and out the hole in the bottom. Pump a good amount of hot glue into that hole so that your wires are nice and snug, and wont be pulled out. Use some long needle-nose pliers or hemostats to keep your lite post as straight as possible while the glue is drying.



I suggest wiring the lights to the switch and battery before securing the power switch inside the base, unless your base is made of metal, or some magic un-melt able plastic

Here's a shitty looking diagram for the wiring. :


No, it wasn't drawn by a 5 year old.



Now you have the perfect night light to take camping. I'm not sure how they measure the brightness of leds but the ones I used are "5mm 10k mcd" whatever that means, and even inside a heavily colored bottle it's bright enough to make a good night lite.

How about the value of your resistors? You can also just type the colors in order, can't see em all...
Brown
Red
??

it was too little n cute to kill...




if you set it free and it comes back to you ...

i let him go last night and he came back tonight. i had to get him off my camera a few times to get this shot. or her... it's pretty cute and feisty. i think i will call it Bulvai.

^ i love that.

my spider is high on cute.

Originally Posted by Mudge

How about the value of your resistors? You can also just type the colors in order, can't see em all...
Brown
Red
??

Blue
Green
Black
Red
Purple
Orange

Is that what you mean?

I have no idea what kind of resistors they are. I bought the l.e.d.s on ebay and the resistors came with them. Everything was in little baggies so there weren't any labels or anything. All I can tell you is that their beige with 4 bands of color on them -Gold, brown, orange, and yellow- but I don't have a clue what that means.

jomear is the ebay seller I've been buying my led's from, and it's the best place I've found to get them. You can get a 20 pack of any size leds from him with free resistors and free shipping, for 99 cents, and when I bought my first set I didn't know what size I needed so I asked if he could ship 10 of one size and 10 of another and he did it no problem, plus the shipping is very fast for something coming from china.

Originally Posted by SYN

Blue
Green
Black
Red
Purple
Orange

Is that what you mean?

I have no idea what kind of resistors they are. I bought the l.e.d.s on ebay and the resistors came with them. Everything was in little baggies so there weren't any labels or anything. All I can tell you is that their beige with 4 bands of color on them -Gold, brown, orange, and yellow- but I don't have a clue what that means.

Those colors indicate the code for the Ohms rating, gold or silver should be the last value, so it's y,o,b,g......also used for caps and inductors...
I had to be able to calculate these just by looking in college.