LED Light's

[W9WLS]

I bought a reel of these off E-BUCK a few week's ago and have been playing with them quite a bit.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261236463328...84.m1438.l2649

They are not water proof , but they are darn bright , have put some up under the shelf to light up the desk and another strip overhead to light up the radio's (put a 2500 Ohm wire-wound pot on this one to dim as needed (overkill but is what I had handy) works great .

Ordered 2 more reel's to do some converting in the Motor Home , figure at this price I can afford to play a bit !

[NN5I]

Looks like just what I need for a reading lamp behind my head at the pillow end of the bed. I read in bed a lot, and there's no easy way to install an appropriate lamp there. This looks like the solution.

Cool, thanks for the tip.

[NN5I]

Just now ordered a couple rolls of them. Can't tell from the listing -- what provision is made for hooking them up to a power supply? Is it, for example, a flexible printed circuit with the LEDs soldered to it?

[W9WLS]

They have a set of solder tab's every 3 led's .
Cut to length needed and solder on a couple of small wires and hook to 12 VDC power source , they are polarity sensitive so you need to pay attention to the hook up .
Once you have them inhand you'll understand.
A4 foot strip doe's a fair job of lighting up a room, not daylight bright , but not bad !

[W9WLS]

One other thought.
These have an adhesive back , clean whatever you intend to stick them to with alcohol or a sure-prep pad and let air dry.

[NN5I]

Sounds like they thought it out pretty well. Thanks!

[TimeToGetGoing]

Thanks for posting this! I will try some too.

Bob
KV4MJ

[KF5BET]

I have LED lighting attached to the underside of the hutch here at the desk. They light quality has degraded over the past few years to almost nil. Might have to see how these work (could use the same wiring probably.

[W9WLS]

I can't really say anything about how long they will last, have only had these in place for about 3 week's here in the stick-built (sort of ) , have another reel or two on order to try in the MH next trip to Ga.
Like what I see so far or I wouldn't have posted the information.

[N3LYT]

Wonder if they would make a 90* bend?

[W9WLS]

Originally Posted by N3LYT

Wonder if they would make a 90* bend?

That looks like it would depend on which way you want to make the 90.
I have not tried to "fold" a corner bend as yet ( haven't found a reason to ) , an "in-line" 90 should work alright .
My next experiment with them will be to replace the burned out meter light's in my Carvin Mixer (big meters).

[N3LYT]

Another question how come so cheap? I was looking on line and some of the LED sellers are getting like $150 for a 16' roll? I would like to make that kind of profit! Have you checked the current draw by any chance?

[NN5I]

The listing gives the current draw as 350 to 400 ma per meter. Since it's five meters long if you don't cut it, the current would then be 1.75 to 2.0 amperes. That's consistent with the manufacturer's stated specs.

That's at 12 volts. At 13.8 it would surely be a little more.

[N3LYT]

Wow then they are pretty generous with their light output specs.

[NN5I]

Originally Posted by N3LYT

Wow then they are pretty generous with their light output specs.

Not necessarily. The five-meter piece consumes about 24 watts. According to the listing, it produces about 200 lumens per meter, or 1000 lumens for five meters. Since one watt equals 683 lumens (at the wavelength of the eye's peak sensitivity), the 24 watts consumed is the same as 16,368 lumens. If we actually get 1000 lumens as light, and the rest as heat, then the efficiency is 1000/16368 or just over 6%. Incandescent lamps typically run about 2% to 2.5%, with small ones usually at the low end; so the LEDs are about three times as efficient as incandescent lamps. I would have expected more, actually. They've probably got series resistors in these strips, one for each set of three LEDs in series.

Fluorescent lamps generally run about 10%, so I can easily believe these LED strips are 6% efficient.

[W9WLS]

I can't seem to do a simple copy and paste a pix here but, yes there is a smt resistor every three led's along with a set of solder pad's.
If I were going to daisy-chain , I would cut in the middle of the solder pad's.

[N3LYT]

OK that won't do for me I'm looking for low wattage and I am very skeptical of lumen claims I'm down to 3 (that seldom get turn on) 1156 bulbs after starting with 13. I am using G4 base 15 smt's at 2.4 watts per so I have already reduced my wattage by a factor of 10. Super bright seem to be the only ones that post their ratings with some degree of accuracy the G4's are rated at 160 lumens @ 3100K and 2.4 watts. I seldom am near anything that looks like a power pole and charge my batteries with a 100 watt solar panel. My theory is the more power in can save the longer I can use the HF! Pictures of LED’s and custom fixtures there are just 4 on.

[NN5I]

They look very nice.

If you're getting 160 lumens, that's 160/683 watts as light, or 234 mw. If they consume 2.4 watts of electricity, then their efficiency is 0.234/2.4 or 9.76% efficiency.

The claims for the LED strips come out to 6% efficiency. The claims for your LEDs come out to 9.76%.

The claim of 6% efficiency is about right for most inexpensive conventional LEDs, which of course is what are in the 5-meter LED strips.

The claim of nearly 10% efficiency is believable too. Philips, for example, manufactures new-technology LEDs that are in that range. They are considerably more expensive.

You get what you pay for, of course. To me, the advantage I anticipate from the LED strips is (1) astonishingly low cost; (2) light that is much whiter than the light from my incandescent lamps; (3) better efficiency than my incandescents; and (4) most important for me, the strip is apparently only about 5/16 of an inch wide, and can be mounted where I need it, which can't be done with anything else I've seen, including incandescents and LED lamps (or fluorescents) intended to replace incandescent lamps in the same fixtures.

But I would also like to do, gradually, what you've done: replace the incandescent lamps in existing fixtures with efficient LED lamps that simply plug in. They would greatly improve my dry-camping house-battery endurance. Where'd you get'em?

[N3LYT]

They came for Amazon they were not cheap just short of $10 but I refuse to buy from a re-seller and then wait until they arrive from China. The build quality is noticeably better then the bulk Chinese stuff I have seen. I think they are down to around $8 now. The fixtures I made they are all flush mounted I got rid of the cheap plastic old fixtures. The G4 base come with pins I just removed them and soldered the wiring direct to the board.

[Dizzy-Dick]

I can see a lot uses for them. Thanks for letting us know about the lights.