DIY LEDs - The write-up
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Skeptic_07
New member
seems like the 3-up rebels are the most output vs space but man they look like a pita to solder.. which i'm probably going to be horrible at (haven't soldered anything in years) which reminds me.. what's a good soldering iron to get?
Skeptic_07
New member
what about those MC-E's ? thats a buttload of lumens!
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
An MC-E is basically four XR-E on the same chip. When you weigh price/performance, IMHO it's borderline compared to a 3-up Rebel or even just individual XR-E.
You have to decide what your criteria are:
1) Most efficient? XR-E, MC-E, Rebels are the best
2) Fewest overall parts count or smallest packaging? MC-E are the best, but 3-up rebels are nearly as good and cheaper
3) etc. etc. etc.
To solder the LEDs on stars, you want a fair amount of power - like 50w. Anything less and it will have trouble heating the pad on the star fast enough, since the star acts as a heatsink, and it's conventional practice to mount the stars on a big heatsink before soldering them.
If you are unsure of your soldering skills, you may want to order a few more LEDs than you need, just in case. Or, practice on something less risky before you have at it for real.
You have to decide what your criteria are:
1) Most efficient? XR-E, MC-E, Rebels are the best
2) Fewest overall parts count or smallest packaging? MC-E are the best, but 3-up rebels are nearly as good and cheaper
3) etc. etc. etc.
To solder the LEDs on stars, you want a fair amount of power - like 50w. Anything less and it will have trouble heating the pad on the star fast enough, since the star acts as a heatsink, and it's conventional practice to mount the stars on a big heatsink before soldering them.
If you are unsure of your soldering skills, you may want to order a few more LEDs than you need, just in case. Or, practice on something less risky before you have at it for real.
Skeptic_07
New member
thanks again wille and james
FYI The endor star is NOT the same as an Luxon rebel. They give out the same ammount of light but the ENDOR gives 6500 Color where as the luxeon is a true 10K at 1a
http://www.philipslumileds.com/pdfs/DS56.pdf True Rebel
http://ledsupply.com/07007-pwc-10-3.php Endor
Grue the Lurker
http://www.philipslumileds.com/pdfs/DS56.pdf True Rebel
http://ledsupply.com/07007-pwc-10-3.php Endor
Grue the Lurker
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Grue,
"Endor Star" is just a brand name made up by Luxdrive, and it IS simply Luxeon Rebels mounted on star boards. You can get Endor Stars with a wide range of colors and bins of Rebels mounted on them, singly or 3-up. In other words, you can get pretty much any Rebel you want, branded as an Endor Star, and it's 100% exactly the same as buying the raw Rebels and mounting them yourself.
But, of course, since the Rebels are really tiny, fragile, and surface mount, it would be pretty hard for the average joe to mount them himself.
The coolest white Rebel available is the "Cool-White" color, which is rated at a minimum 4500k, typical 6500k, and maximum 10,000k. They do have a color bin structure, but none of the vendors selling in small batches to hobbysts are advertizing which color bin the product is, so it's pretty much impossible to get "10,000k" Rebels - wether you buy them on raw, or mounted under the Endor Star brand name. Having bought a bunch of them from a few different sources, I'm guessing that most are WO or XO color bins, which is smack dab in the middle of the range, and more or less a 6500k color. Which is roughly equivalent to the WG, WD, and WC XR-E color bins people are getting from places like dealextreme or ledsupply.
In the end though, I hope the point is clear that Endor Stars are simply Luxeon Rebels pre-mounted on star boards, and regardless of which product you buy, your color choices are the same, because the actual emitter is exactly the same.
"Endor Star" is just a brand name made up by Luxdrive, and it IS simply Luxeon Rebels mounted on star boards. You can get Endor Stars with a wide range of colors and bins of Rebels mounted on them, singly or 3-up. In other words, you can get pretty much any Rebel you want, branded as an Endor Star, and it's 100% exactly the same as buying the raw Rebels and mounting them yourself.
But, of course, since the Rebels are really tiny, fragile, and surface mount, it would be pretty hard for the average joe to mount them himself.
The coolest white Rebel available is the "Cool-White" color, which is rated at a minimum 4500k, typical 6500k, and maximum 10,000k. They do have a color bin structure, but none of the vendors selling in small batches to hobbysts are advertizing which color bin the product is, so it's pretty much impossible to get "10,000k" Rebels - wether you buy them on raw, or mounted under the Endor Star brand name. Having bought a bunch of them from a few different sources, I'm guessing that most are WO or XO color bins, which is smack dab in the middle of the range, and more or less a 6500k color. Which is roughly equivalent to the WG, WD, and WC XR-E color bins people are getting from places like dealextreme or ledsupply.
In the end though, I hope the point is clear that Endor Stars are simply Luxeon Rebels pre-mounted on star boards, and regardless of which product you buy, your color choices are the same, because the actual emitter is exactly the same.
Dimmers
Dimmers
From what I see, you can easily use one buckpucks voltage supply to feed all of the other buckpucks pots. The current is sooo low on these that it should not matter even in parallel. What I mean by power supply is not the output or the input but the supplied voltage reference used to dim the puck.
If you don't want to do that than get a 5 volt supply and use that as the refrence and use one single pot to feed the pucks dimmer input. Don't forget to common the ground of the reference to the supply.
Dimmers
From what I see, you can easily use one buckpucks voltage supply to feed all of the other buckpucks pots. The current is sooo low on these that it should not matter even in parallel. What I mean by power supply is not the output or the input but the supplied voltage reference used to dim the puck.
If you don't want to do that than get a 5 volt supply and use that as the refrence and use one single pot to feed the pucks dimmer input. Don't forget to common the ground of the reference to the supply.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Re: Dimmers
Re: Dimmers
+1
The only reason to have a 1:1 ratio between pots and buckpucks is if you want to be able to dim each buckpuck individually.
Re: Dimmers
+1
The only reason to have a 1:1 ratio between pots and buckpucks is if you want to be able to dim each buckpuck individually.
bobbyrocco
In Memoriam
So where is the best source for the Cree's right now?
I know about these http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2394
but have heard they take a while to ship. I know about LEDSUPPLY.COM but they are pretty exspensive.
I am about to place a fairly large order around 140 LED's and wanted to find some other sources to compare. Thanks
I know about these http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2394
but have heard they take a while to ship. I know about LEDSUPPLY.COM but they are pretty exspensive.
I am about to place a fairly large order around 140 LED's and wanted to find some other sources to compare. Thanks
Altpers0na
ARS Caesar
dealextreme takes about 10s ish to arrive, call it two weeks to be safe..
also, i think they have a lot of knock off products.
i have ordered from them before, and been very happy, but i have not risk that much on them.. just a dollar or two.
also, i think they have a lot of knock off products.
i have ordered from them before, and been very happy, but i have not risk that much on them.. just a dollar or two.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
james3370
Premium Member
here is the price structure they got on the last group buy over on nanoreef:
CREE XR-E cool whites and royal blues:
Up to and including 100: $5.85 each ($0.15 off normal price)
101-250: $5.76 each ($0.24 off normal price)
251-350: $5.64 each ($0.36 off normal price)
350-500: $5.45 ($0.55 off normal price)
500+: $5.25 ($0.75 off normal price)
Lenses are available too for $1.ea
80, 60, 40, 25, and 8 degree
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
:lol: kudos to you for actually surface-mount soldering at home! That's pretty challenging.
ledsupply.com has the 3-up Endors for around $16 each if you haven't found them there yet.
ledsupply.com has the 3-up Endors for around $16 each if you haven't found them there yet.
bobbyrocco
In Memoriam
Thanks guys for the pricing info.
For those of you that have ordered from both dealextreme and ETG can you tell me if you think it is worth the extra dollar per LED to get the better quality ETG stars?
For my project it would save me around $140 to order from dealextreme so it is significant but not if the quality isn't there!
For those of you that have ordered from both dealextreme and ETG can you tell me if you think it is worth the extra dollar per LED to get the better quality ETG stars?
For my project it would save me around $140 to order from dealextreme so it is significant but not if the quality isn't there!
Phewwwww....
Phewwwww....
Wow,
I have just finished reading ALL 84 pages of posts in this thread, as I plan on building a LED array for over my 6' x 2' tank that I have been neglecting for a few years.
Congrats Soundwave! and everyone else that has posted useful information in this post. This is the fist 84 page thread that I have ever read all the way through. I consider myself a fairly fast screen reader, and it still took a few days to get through all of it.
I have actually read EVERY post, and there is a lot of valuable information here, albeit due to quite a few people not reading all the posts (including the all important first page of posts!) quite a bit of it is duplicated.
Also, some of this sites policies regarding external links kind of hampered the discussion a bit, which is a bit frustrating.
Has anyone though of creating a summary of all the information that is within this post that is of value? I would be more than willing to post it on my personal site, as I haven't really used it for anything useful in the past few years. Anyone that is interested in trying to compile all of this fantastic information please feel free to PM me.
Otherwise, consider me another subscriber (I've gone this far right!) and I will post pics of my build as I go along.
Phewwwww....
Wow,
I have just finished reading ALL 84 pages of posts in this thread, as I plan on building a LED array for over my 6' x 2' tank that I have been neglecting for a few years.
Congrats Soundwave! and everyone else that has posted useful information in this post. This is the fist 84 page thread that I have ever read all the way through. I consider myself a fairly fast screen reader, and it still took a few days to get through all of it.
I have actually read EVERY post, and there is a lot of valuable information here, albeit due to quite a few people not reading all the posts (including the all important first page of posts!) quite a bit of it is duplicated.
Also, some of this sites policies regarding external links kind of hampered the discussion a bit, which is a bit frustrating.
Has anyone though of creating a summary of all the information that is within this post that is of value? I would be more than willing to post it on my personal site, as I haven't really used it for anything useful in the past few years. Anyone that is interested in trying to compile all of this fantastic information please feel free to PM me.
Otherwise, consider me another subscriber (I've gone this far right!) and I will post pics of my build as I go along.
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