LED spotlight How To

[heresjohnny]

Here it is! Feedback will be incorporated as I have time to get to it.

http://www.johnnyspage.com/ledspothowto.htm

[Vlad]

Very nice HJ, thanks.

[Fright Zone]

Excellent!

[Ravenscroft]

I love it. I'm already starting to collect bottle caps. lol I will try this as soon as my LEDs come in the mail.

[heresjohnny]

Thanks everyone. Does anyone know of a good soldering how-to I could reference?

[The Mortician]

Thanks everyone. Does anyone know of a good soldering how-to I could reference?

This is from www.instructables.com (http://www.instructables.com/id/E30LR180T4EWP872BS/?ALLSTEPS)

[Hellspawn]

Johnny, what was your average cost per light after everything is said and done?

I keep going back and forth, I think it will ultimately come down to time, if I have enough, I might just try to make my own, your tutorial was really well laid out, thank you!

[heresjohnny]

Johnny, what was your average cost per light after everything is said and done?

I keep going back and forth, I think it will ultimately come down to time, if I have enough, I might just try to make my own, your tutorial was really well laid out, thank you!

To get the prices I describe you have to buy bulk. The cost are the LED's (5 * .14 =.70 using the example in the how-to, including shipping), resistors cost less than .01, and I seem to recall the pattery clips were .20. All that plus say .05 for PVC (20 6" long pieces) comes out to roughly $1.00, but you may have to add some shipping cost if you buy some of the supporting componenets at a place other than where you got the LEDs.

[wolfen manor]

thanks for taking the time to make such a detailed "how to".

[Ravenscroft]

I have my LED's and I have my bottle caps, this weekend will be "fun with LED's" type of weekend. HAHAHAHAHAHA I will post pics of all of my creations later.

[NecroBones]

Just curious... Have you timed the lifespan of the batteries? Some back of the envelope estimates give me about 48 hours for one ultra-bright LED, so probably under 10 hours with 5 of them. Just curious if that matches your experience. :)

[heresjohnny]

Just curious... Have you timed the lifespan of the batteries? Some back of the envelope estimates give me about 48 hours for one ultra-bright LED, so probably under 10 hours with 5 of them. Just curious if that matches your experience. :)

Good question. I used the 7 LED spots for 2 nights, several hours each night with no noticeable loss of intensity. It would worth hooking one up and seeing how ling it lasts.

[heresjohnny]

Okay, started a battery test tonight. 8:30pm, Energizer 9v battery, 7 blue LEDs.

[heresjohnny]

Okay, nothing scientific about this, but 12 hours later at 8:30 this morning, all 7 LEDs where still going strong. 24 hours later at 8:30 tonight only one LED was still going. This makes sense in a way because the 7 LED circuit has 4 parallel branches, 3 with 2 LEDs and 1 with a single LED. So it appears that you can expect at least 12 hours on a 9 volt battery.

[Sickie Ickie]

Thanks for your testing Johnny. :D

[tonguesandwich]

Thanks, for going in such detail with the instructions and photo's. You did an amazing job!

[Evil Eyes]

I really need to update my outdoor lighting too. I just use green floods right now. I wanted blue floods in my graveyard but found that there was not enough intensity to light my house with the blue bulbs so I switched to green but everything looks boring. I would love LED's but am not an electronics person at all and am overwhelmed by this great how-to. Don't they just sell these lights in the store ready made? Or what about using small wattage landscape lights with colored gels? HELP!

[heresjohnny]

I have heard of others using LED flashlights or reading lights, and color filters or gels, but I have no experience with these myself. You might also try searching ebay, for example searching on 'LED spot light' gave me this (http://cgi.ebay.com/AC-110V-BLUE-Color-Colors-18-LED-Spot-Light-bulb_W0QQitemZ250157885493QQihZ015QQcategoryZ10698 7QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem). Again, I have not used these myself, just some ideas.

[tonguesandwich]

Caution ...besthongkong, very bad to deal with. Two months later, I just won my case with paypal.

[Ravenscroft]

That is surprising, the last 12 orders I put in got here in about two weeks time. I will keep an eye on them though just in case.

[Koumajutsu]

I just completed a test using my newly aquired Luxeon III Emitters with a 2 watt 1.5 ohm limiting resistor and a 3.6v Lithium cell (AA sized)

It lasted for about a week on solid (much to Teary's dismay cause I played with the thing constantly)

link for LED:
http://www.luxeonstar.com/sub_category.php?id=197&link_str=196::197

[Gothyc Designs]

So how do those work for hookup? Any needing resistors. Looks like just blade plugs, I wonder if they'll just hook up to a 110v cord and plug into the wall.

Looks like a good idea though.:cool:

Later,
GD

[Koumajutsu]

well, they're not your typical LED housing. Their intention is for soldering directly to a surface mount board. I just bend the pins down and use them like a normal LED, with a resistor, and a pair of AA or AAA batteries (9v batteries are junk IMNSHO)

[SoCal Scare]

getting all the stuff together so I can give this a shot. figure I'll start with the small prop work first then slowly move up to building my bigger props this summer. thanks for the tutorial Johnny

[joker]

Tutorial no longer there:(

Did anyone happen to save it or know of another location besides the link provided?

[The Archivist]

When I tried it, the link was dead.

[Mr_Chicken]

Here's the tutorial via the Wayback Machine. No pics, but the info's still there
http://web.archive.org/web/20071118152803/http://www.johnnyspage.com/ledspothowto.htm

[Devils Chariot]

I could make one tonight, since i am going to make one (or more leds spots) tonight! :)

but...

I found this goggling, its another take on heresjohhnys design.

http://www.halloweenpropmaster.com/led_spotlight.htm

its a pdf and it comes in a fun comic book style format and has a extra added feature in the last frame that would be helpful, but you might miss if you dont look for it.

[PerfessorEvil]

Also:
http://www.toykeeperslair.com/PDF/LEDSpotlights.pdf

[fritz42_male]

The only thing I'd say about the Propmaster version is that each resistor dissipates some power leading to a reduced battery life. If you can use a higher voltage then wire the LEDs in series then you will get a substantially longer battery life.

As an example, from a 12V battery source you can use 6 ultrabright LEDs in 2 parallel arrays. Each array will only need a single 100 Ohm resistor. Total consumption 488mW.

If you drop the voltage to 4.5V (a battery box for example), each LED will need it's own resistor and power consumption goes up to 542mW

For my LED arrays I use 12V lantern batteries which can be bought for a few bucks. They seem to last for ever!

[Devils Chariot]

I made the heresjohnny version which are kind of like propmaster's, and they will run 2-3 days continuosly on a 9 volt, and I have stuffed 10 leds into each one. I can imagine a lantern battery would seem like it last forever !:)

[Mr_Chicken]

DC, can you take some pics of yours while you assemble them tonight? If you just get a shot of the parts and one of the soldered circuit, I'm sure I and others could figure out the rest.

[Devils Chariot]

DC, can you take some pics of yours while you assemble them tonight? If you just get a shot of the parts and one of the soldered circuit, I'm sure I and others could figure out the rest.

I made 5 last night but i just saw this post this morning. I'll do some more tonight. I'll run the camera when i do.

[Jaybo]

Just to add a few more different ways to make LED spots, here are few more links:

I've been making these recently which work very nice:

http://www.cindybob.com/halloween/ledlighting/ledspotlights/

I use a converted PC power supply to provide 12v DC to my spots, although the 12v lantern battery is a really good idea to save on the cable runs.

To save time and effort, I am considering building spots using an MR16 LED bulb like these guys on the Christmas forums:

http://www.christmasinkent.com/howto/HowToLEDspots.htm#Others

[turtle2778]

The link is broken...can anyone help?