LeD lighting

[sunnybob]

Has anyone made their own lighting strips up?

I cant find anything suitable here for my workbench lighting. I want straight strips like flourescents, but even at electrical wholesalers here they are 50 quid for a metre and I want 7 of them.

i'm coming to the UK this week so could buy just strips and bring them back with me, but havent had any experience with making led strips.
I dont need anything fancy as far as housings, i could just put the led strips onto batten and hang them from the ceiling.

Do i need starters or ballasts or any other silly words to make them work?

 

[novocaine]

you need the strip and a driver/transformer that's about it. you can get fancy and buy a remote control driver too if you must. they have a maximum length associated with the driver, you can cut it (typically every 3 LEDs) and solder wires in to loop it round and go back.

be warned though, the output of the strips can be a bit low.

 

[sunnybob]

How do I tell low or high power?

Not interested in fancy remotes or covers, i just want enough light to work with during the winter.
I will need 2 x 3.5 metre runs.

 

[Bodgers]

This is what, I have done, and it might be slightly unorthodox, but works.

I bought reels of self adhesive, moisture and dust proof LEDs from LEDHut. They are good quality at reasonable prices. I then mounted them on DIY fittings that are basically strips painted in heat resistant white radiator paint.


When you buy them they will be rated by power per meter, I calculated the total consumption and bought two second hand Nintendo Wii 12v DC power supplies that covered by calculated power draw by a good 20%.

All in all, it is a very cheap setup that is dust and moisture resistant.



Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[sunnybob]

Bodgers, do you have any more detail on type of led.
remember I am starting from complete ignorance (nothing new there) and am already getting bogged down with options.

I'm happy to pay for top quality leds and connectors, just dont want fancy cases that no one will ever see.
remember I am not up to speed on UK shops either. I will be in somerset so most likely would need to mail order to there.

 

[woodenstx]

How is Cycprus for letting stuff in from China?

I have for my under cupboard lights in the kitchen, a couple of reels worth of eBay China LED stip, not waterproof, not expensive and has lasted a good 4-5 years even over the kettle.
On full power they are properly bright, and I know you can get brighter!, the same product in most UK shops will cost 4-5times that of the eBay specials, and will have come from the same supplier anyway.

A point of note though, if you want them to give off light without casting odd shadows over your work, I suggest a perimeter of strip, then zig-zag at something in the region of 60deg in the middle, this is what I did and we have no funny shadows. It also permits a good flood of light.

 

[Bodgers]

Bodgers, do you have any more detail on type of led.
remember I am starting from complete ignorance (nothing new there) and am already getting bogged down with options.

I'm happy to pay for top quality leds and connectors, just dont want fancy cases that no one will ever see.
remember I am not up to speed on UK shops either. I will be in somerset so most likely would need to mail order to there.

This is the reel I bought:

https://www.ledhut.co.uk/led-strip-ligh ... -roll.html

Over 5m it is 72w. I split it into 2 2.5m sections each powered by its own Wii 50w power supply. They are easy to cut and solder. You can buy the power supply from LEDhut - a 100w supply would cover the whole reel.

I can vouch for the quality on these reels. The strip is encased in clear silicone so they are completely sealed. Probably better quality from the cheap reels from Amazon.

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[woodenstx]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3528-5050-563 ... VfmTeQ0nBQ

5050 5M cool white same product really, but for £11 inc postage, and they are in china not Coventry.. Although I have been surprised in the past with rapid delivery :lol:

 

[sunnybob]

Nothing gets past Cypriot customs (I can vouch for that).
You get a note in your post box telling you to turn up at the main post office and then have to produce all invoices including shipping costs, and even produce your passport. Then you get stuffed for import, excise, and vat on parts AND shipping. Because of all this I can add a couple weeks on the china delivery date as well. Really not worth the hassle.
Thats why it needs to be from the UK. As long as we (uk) are still in the eu I can bring back any damn thing I want and the case doesnt even get looked at.

I have seen some on the net with 4 rows side by side, some with 300 leds per 5 metre right up to 600 leds per 5 metre. and I havent even fully understood lumens yet. Minefields seem quite tame by comparison.

 

[woodenstx]

Ignore lumens, its a BS statement, and thats before you get into chinese lumens :lol:

300/5M is about the minimum you want, 600 would be dandy but (obviously) doubles power consumption on the same run
Not see 4 side by side before, they tend to be single rows

 

[sunnybob]

Having started from a point of total ignorance, I was shocked to find the cost of those starters.

Suddenly the wholesalers 50 quid unit is viewed in a different light (hah!)

Not for the first time in my life, its back to the drawing board.
I will have to revisit local shops tomorrow to get a proper price comparison before lugging stuff back from England.

 

[flying haggis]

if you are staying with friends in the uk and can have stuff delivered to them, these are good ( a friend has them in his workshop/man cave)
and the smaller lengths would fit in a case. they link together and have mains input


https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.uk/le ... ights.html

 

[sunnybob]

Problems there. I would not trust an airline baggage handler with a bunch of 30 inch glass tubes (I would need 8 of them), plus i dont have that many units so would need to buy another 6.

financial non starter. it has to be flexible leds to get them back safely.

 

[flying haggis]

they are not glass tube, they are an aluminium profile with the led strip in it and a perspex cover

 

[flying haggis]

they are not glass tube, they are an aluminium profile with the led strip in it and a perspex cover

 

[sunnybob]

oh, the pictures led me to believe they were replacement tubes.
But another problem will be weight.
I cant get more than 600mm safely in the case, 900 would be diagonal and subject to damage through the soft case corners. i need up to 7 metres of lighting, which could mean 10 or 11 of them.
the mrs wouldnt be happy about losing that much storage.

 

[dynax]

no need to over complicate things, led strips usually work from a 12v dc regulated plug in transformer if using a power socket or you can use a direct connection to a 12v battery, i have made an led light panel using the led strip sandwiched between 2 pieces of polycarbonate with some clear silicone, and wired to a cigar lighter plug to use from my 12v jumpstart power pack, no need for any fancy starters and most will be supplied with a 12vdc psu anyway,

 

[sunnybob]

I'm getting confused again.
At the start of this i was given to understand i needed starter units, that on one link were almost 30 quid a pop on top of another 30 for the might itself.
Now you say they come with the units?

I cant be fussed building a heath robinson set up with car batterys and chargers. I dont want square panels, i want straight runs.
i just need to know exactly what I would have to buy to produce 2 x 4 metres of lighting that i can turn on and off like ordinary lights.
It would be nice to have them switchable in 2 metre sections though.

 

[dynax]

Hi sunnybob, it is a minefield regarding leds, and up to a few years ago i was pretty much as confused as you are now, it is all too easy to get bogged down with you need to do this and you need that, with the led strip lights i use comes as a complete kit of everything as shown in the picture,

the leds are in a 5mt length on a reel, the little white box is the controller used with the remote, and the plug in transformer, with mine i bypassed the the controller and transformer and went to a direct 12v supply,

but when it comes to replacing existing lights like for like, and operating from the original switch it needs to have a led driver fitted inbetween the leds and the power supply, in it's simplest form the led driver is a smaller and compact version of the plug in transformer, which is wired directly into the switched supply, these are your typical drivers, https://www.screwfix.com/c/electrical-l ... enttype=dc

with what you want to achieve can be done in a couple of ways, either way the led strip you will need 2 reels of, and cut them down into 4 2mt lengths, these are self adhesive backed so can be fixed to most materials, here is a link to a picture of where to cut them, https://www.led-supplies.com/media/wysi ... points.jpg

to wire them up and keep it simple which would mean replacing the existing or adding extra switches to suit, would have a driver for each led strip controlled by one of the switches that way each strip is independent of the others, and to avoid unnecessary expense the led strips can be bought on their own without the controller and the transformer for just a few pounds, and because the strips are in short lengths the smallest drivers would be enough something like a 1000ma driver would be ample as each strip would only be using aprrox 800ma and these can be found on ebay for around £4-£5 each, roughly £20 for 4, add that to the led strips and switches and wire all in for around £40.

 

[sunnybob]

Mike, thats explained a fair bit thanks. But now I'm bogged down in constant voltage or constant current. (lol)
I'm off today on a fact finding mission of what is available here.

I'll report back later, wish me luck.