Re: Re: LED lighting

[Frank Mc Alinden <fmcalind@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Dave
This sounds quite interesting.........Have you seen the 4 legged leds
...would be nice to change colours etc....bought a couple but like yourself
been too busy doing other stuff...

Been thinking instead of having the leds protrude through the wooden
cupboards maybe use led pipes (plastic rod) and have the leds (maybe
surface mount )in the  cupboards housed in a pieces of  aluminium maybe
...just  thought

Frank


----- Original Message -----
From: Dave McLaughlin
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 10:22 AM
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Re: LED lighting


Hi Andy,

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Very funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes!!!
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-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Laurence [mailto:andy@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 31 October 2003 08:42
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Re: LED lighting

>That sounds very cool!  These switches hide behind panels?!  I'd be
>worried about grubby finger marks where the switch is hidden.  I for
>one notice the grubby finger marks where people fumble in the dark
>around certain switches in my house.

I was looking to fit it in an area where dark colours are, such as the
worktop of the dark wood surround on the base of the cupboard units.

>That's a great idea, you just need to think about what it looks like
>on the bottom.  One thing I wasn't 100% happy about with my install
>was the angle of the lights.  They light up the rear half of the work
>surface extremely well, but the front half is less well lit.  Angling
>the lights towards the front of the work surface would be useful.
>This could easily be done using your method by simply planing the
>wood at an angle.  It was a little tricky with the cabinets!

I may go with the idea that Rodney Hall has give me in another email
of using some ally strip from B&Q etc.
One thing I was maybe going to do is to use a PCB for all the LED
fitting. By making a standard size PCB of say 15mm x 300mm, I could
make them linkable and allow more to be connected together. A recent
idea was to put a CAN bus controller on each one so that I would
have independent control of each module etc, with only a simple 4
wire interconnect.

>Sounds like a great idea.  One thing to think about is how you get
>the wires from the power source to the wood holding the lights.  I
>ran power from the socket above the cabinets through one of the
>cabinets to the LEDs below.

My cabinets are fitted slightly away from the wall. The top bar is
fixed to the wall, but by drilling down through this, I can drop
cables down the back. This is what I did for the touch screen
computer I have fitted already.

>I'd be inclined to find more powerful LEDs if I were to do it again.
>I used 8cd units, but I'd rather have used the 20cd units I've found
>at http://www.ervan-int.com/cgi-bin/products.pl?
>category=ledlamps_lamps to the point that I'm considering replacing
>them, and will definitely use the more powerful ones for the next
>project.  Question is, will that be the loft, garden, shed, or inside
>the cupboards?  I've thought about doing the same to light the inside
>of the cupboards.  Might look quite good.

I have been checking around looking for something much more powerful.
The Luxeon ones look great but the price is very high. I may buy one
or two to give them a try though.

I like the idea of some in the cupboards with a hidden magnetic switch
to detect when the door is opened and switch the LED's on. mmmm

Regards
Dave...
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