67 replies to this topic

[nem]

Recently power in my area has been deregulated and I am not a fan of paying more for something that does not provide anymore value than it did 3 months ago. So I decided to look around and see what we used everyday that I could make more efficent. I first notice the wife loves to have the microwave lights on, I opened up the cover to find 2 80 watt bulbs burning. That got me thinking, we made 100+ leds for our Haunt to reduce power usage and they worked out great. So with that I decided to incorperate LEDs in my house as a lighting source. I am going to share my ongoing build log in hopes that maybe it might help someone else in their household.

I will be posting pictures of what is going on. Lets see if this works.


2 80 watt bulbs soon to be replace.

[nem]

These are 3 watt white luxeon leds.

[nem]

These are the led drivers. It was cheaper to buy them premade than to build them. 85-120v input so you can wire them into your existing 110v circuit.

[nem]

Here I have the leds mounted to my heatsink. These little guys get warm.

[nem]

Lights on. Pretty bright for 3 watts. Seeing stars now.

[nem]

Holding the cover over to see how the light gets dispersed.

I am now seeing black dots as I type.

[nem]

Mounted the heatsink to standard aluminum flashing and bent to make a reflector.

[nem]

Wired into the circuit and ready to be put back together.

[nem]

Back together and working. The nice part is I hate yellow light and these leds have a very nice color temperature.
Now what will the wife think, if she even notices.

Stay tuned for the next project.

[Aaron Clinton]

Great step by step with pictures.

[nem]

Aaron, on 03 February 2010 - 02:04 PM, said:

Great step by step with pictures.

Thanks Aaron. Sean had made mention of doing a build log over here. I hope that this will help others here get into using leds.

[nem]

The wife turned the light and noticed it looked different 2 hours later

Maybe another project tomorrow.

[nem]

I think I am going to put an led in one of the wife's scentsy pots. They use a 25watt incandescent bulb to melt the wax. I can use the heat from the led heatsink to melt the wax with only 3watts.

This idea did not work, not enough heat.

Edited by nem, 04 February 2010 - 04:58 PM.

[nem]

New idea, went to Lowes and found a 5" recessed light fixture (white) for $5. This is a common fixture that you may have in your house now.Pictures later tonight.

[nem]

The $5 light fixture.

[nem]

3watt leds mounted in the fixture.

[nem]

Leds powered up. Picture taken at an angle so that you are not blinded.

[nem]

I took this picture in the basement to see how bright the light was. I am going to machine a heatsink to fit better in the fixture and mount it over my sink. I will take a picture when finished.

Over all I am impressed with these 3watt leds. I think I am going to get some higher wattage leds to play with next.

[nem]

nem, on 04 February 2010 - 07:21 PM, said:

3watt leds mounted in the fixture.

After some testing last night I am making a new heatsink to fit 3 leds on it. I plan on putting this light in the kitchen. Not sure where yet, but I will have some more pictures Monday.

[dem beats]

AWESOME THREAD!

Gold star for you. WHo do you use for LED's again. I know it's in the HOTS, but I can't find it.