Bored tonight.. So I made an LED moonlight for fun.
 

5 3200mcd LED's

6V 800mA supply.

5 x 220ohm resistors wired to cathodes.

1 x 1Kohm pot for dimming(temporary till a controller is built)

three pieces of acrylic strip 3/4" wide for frame and shell.

Last shot was taken at full intensity on a four second exposure.

Really cool!!!!!!


http://members.shaw.ca/dj88/moon/led_1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/dj88/moon/led_2.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/dj88/moon/led_3.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/dj88/moon/led_4.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/dj88/moon/led_5.jpg

that is really cool. are you going to run them all to gether or are they going to be coming on in sequence?

For now all together. tho I am sure I could do a cool disco lighting sequence. :lol:

That's really cool,
you might be able to make some coin selling those.

J

oh probably.. who has time to do that right now? :wink:

Re: Bored tonight.. So I made an LED moonlight for fun.
 

Where did you get the LED's

Active. On First and Boundary.

Darren what angle of spread are thease LED's? Also did you just drill two little holes in the acrylic and push them in?

As you probably know I have been farting around with LED's for a bit now and I have a large colection of them. the problem I am at is I think the narrow beem LED's are to focused for a night light (you end up with spot lights) so I have ordered some high intensity wide angle ones.. hope they will work better.

Also I am curious as to whi you didn;t use the Luston Star you have.. I think that it with out the lense would give a nice wide spread, or was it to bright?

Steve

Steve,

For the spread problem I aimed them at the roof of the lid. Provides perfect dispersion. No spotlights. :D If I want a disco effect I rotate it so the LEDs point into the water. I just drilled 3/16th holes and then a countersink 13/16 holes partway in so the LED's protrude from the acrylic.

Haven't had a chance to use the Stars yet. I want to build an adjustable constant current source for them. Much easier to control.

I really like your moonlight idea. What did it cost to make the strip? where did you get the power source?

umm acrylic cost me like $8 or something. Can't remember.

I had the DC source here. You can get them at any electronics supply store tho.

I assume the light is really dim and won't affect the fish or corals. Is it bright enough for you to view the tank at all in the night?

Yup.


With the potentiometer you can vary the intensity.

has anyone found out if you can support corrals on led's?
I am thinking of using some of my good led's for the 29bowfront nano reef I am setting up. I have a bunch of royal blue 1 and 5 watt led's and also some high kelvin white. They have mcd ratings of about 1 million each.

Thats honestly too cool, I must copy you. Been a while since highschool electronics class, I'll need to do some reading.