Guess mine is more on the implementation side. I always loved playing with LEDs and man they are so much more powerful now. I got a 1W white LED off the internet to play with. The first time I hooked it up with a resistor and battery I saw spots. I was going to build a circuit so I could hook it up and let it run for a while and see if I like the lighting and the power. But then my wife complained about the led nightlights we bought at wally world. You couldn't see to make it in the bathroom much less anything else. I took it apart and looked at the circuit. Whatta you know, works for what I wanted. So I swapped out the 1W led for the original. It's pretty bright. I'm sure it's not using the full potential of the 1w led but plenty to see by, practically no heat whatsoever, doesn't drive the led so hard it shortens it's life, and made a good test bed. It's been going for about 3 months now.

Now I'm thinking of spending the extra and going for like a 10W led which should be equivalent to a 40W light bulb. I better make sure to look away when I hook that baby up. I thought about taking an incadesent bulb fixture apart and using the glass part to diffuse the light. Basically look like an incadescent bulb with a led inside. Might as well do something with tons of those useless things around.

Michael

 

the only hard thing is to bring the 120 volts AC to about the 4 volts you need for the high powered LEDs

 

Or you could use a 10W compact fluorescent lamp which is equivalent to a 50W incandescent lamp and costs less.

Putting a 10W LED in the same night light won't make it any brighter bbecause it will limit the current to the same level.

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The 120VAC (or 240VAC here) could be brought down with a series capacitor.
I don't know if this will work for a 10W led (quite a lot of current flowing through there) but the capacitor is a "resistor" in series with the load (don't really know the english term) this is called Xc...

Xc = 1 / 2*PI*f*C

PI = well, 3,14...
f = 50/60Hz, depends on wich country you're in...
C = the size of the capacitor.

But as I said, don't know if it can handle such big currents, try it out (in a safe way please) before going permanent... Or if someone says not to do it ofcourse, don't want to get you hurt...

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The CF will put out more heat and not last near as long as an led lamp. I replaced all the major bulbs with CF and had two go out already and they've only been in about 3 months.

I wasn't going to put the 10w led in the nightlight. It would require a heftier circuitry anyway. I was going to make it so it plugged into an incadescent light socket.

Michael

 

My CF lights last for ages. Your power grid must be a mess.

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Bill
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Well, it is. I live in the city still and this city stinks. They charge $.11 per kw and yet on a weekly basis loose power or have brownouts. We're hoping to sell and build in the coutry something more efficient and green. But right now just doing with what we have.

Michael

 

I pay $0.22 and i have also a electricity suplier that helps me saving energy consumption by not giving it 5 times a week for 6 a 7 hours

considder yourself lucky

still than at this time i think the flourcent lamps are still your best buy for the price and consumption giving light ration

Robert-Jan

 

Thats going to be a huge amount of heat, what type of heatsink will you use? Most of those drop in incandescent replacements I've seen are all heatsink, and expensive too. They also seem to use multiple lower watt (relatively) emitters over a convex surface for a larger beam spread.

Too bad the home bulb replacement side, don't have the parts to fool with like the flashlight group, or do they? Not talking about the flat strip lighting, which seems to have some support out there.

 

Sure it will work... $10 capacitor, a resistor, a fuse, and a diode bridge.

For that much I would do it right with an HV9910 for $1.50, a FET for $1, a few bucks for a inductor, $0.50 for a diode...

 

http://www.supertex.com/pdf/datasheets/HV9910.pdf
Yes, this looks like a nice IC indeed

But where do you get such a high price tag? Most of this could probably be done with junk laying around, A capacitor and maybe an extra resistor + one extra diode over the LED (or another led, so you don't have as much flickering...)

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At 230V 50Hz, 350mA would require a 4.9µF capacitor, the nearest value is 4.7µF and isn't cheap - you're better off just buying the IC.

I still think the easiest solution is a CFL which will probably be cheaper too when you consider the price of the LEDs.

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I agree but who ever listens us

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Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
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Ohh yes, they are expensive, I have the 1W in RBG so a total of 3W as well as white and green. This way you can change the color temp so nice warm light compared to the plane white ones. But I try to get them salvaged like the link of my favorite place in the world in my signature, cheaper than new.

-BaC

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You have to figure the cost vs lifetime. If you're looking at only instantanious cost then yeah. But incadescent would be cheaper then.

Do like the discussions.