Slashdot Mirror

Where the heck are you? Home Depot stocks the Phillips LEDs, and all the parts I use are available mail order from an outfit in Vermont. There are others, these are just the guys I stumbled across when I first set out to build bike lights.

This stuff is not-not-not prototype -- I built my first set of lights in 2008 or earlier: http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/more-undercabinet-lights/

The biggest problem is that the design point for incandescent bulbs is all different from LEDs, and trying to put LEDs into a compatible package in a compatible fixture is a PITA. When you can avoid that (under cabinets, for example) results are far better.

Aren't LEDs less efficient for white light, compared to current streetlights with HPS? Wikipedia says 150 lumens/watt for HPS and only 10-90 for white LEDs.

Might want to check my math, but based on the spec sheet this LED looks like it gets up to 330 lumens/watt .

Here's bright vs. cool, according to a camera. Hard to tell by camera, but up close our eyes had no problem at all. The photo is 3 and 3 of each.

I'm guessing that it's not just relative, but saturation of receptors in bright sunlight. I remember sailing in Florida as a kid, without sunglasses, and alternating between my two eyes because it was too bright. And when I would switch, all the colors would change -- all the blue had dropped out of the now-tired eye, if I recall correctly. Further, our rods (low-light receptors) are skewed a bit to the blue -- they peak at cyan, not green (I learned this researching best colors for an LED bike light -- green did not make the cut, because of the green-go association). Think about how moonlight looks blueish --- that's just reflected sunlight, at a much reduced intensity.

The problem with it "becoming chaotic" if you sit too closely is that the Wiimote has to see both IR sources at the same time in order to tell where it is pointing; if you go too far away you would have a similar problem as the Wiimote would see both IR sources as one light source (I'd assume this would probably happen at quite a distance. Nintendo designed the Sensor bar to be optimal in most situations (between 6 and 15 feet from the television I would assume) but if that doesn't work well for you (and you're technically inclined) you could easily produce your own sensor bar by using 10 IR LEDs ( http://ledsupply.com/l2-0-ir5th30-1.php ); cut the gap between the IR sources from 1/2-2/3 for sitting close and 1.5 to 2.0 times for sitting far away.

At the same time if you have too many more IR sources in the area (say from the sun on your TV or what not) you could always double up on LEDs and reduce the sensitivity to nothing. It sucks that Nintendo didn't make the bar more adjustable (by increasing the number of LEDs and allowing you to adjust the size), and it sucks that you'd have to create your own if your problems are too consistent, but this doesn't seem like it would be too complicated of a problem that a mod couldn't fix it.

You're welcome, though it looks like I was partially mistaken as the only IR LED review I can find now is this one...
http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/ledir.htm
.
. ...and there do not seem to be any IR flashlights reviewed there. The above review links to this IR LED supplier...
http://www.irled.com/
.
. ...which seems to no longer exist. I googled and found this company, though...
http://www.ledsupply.com/
.
. ...selling the following two IR LEDs:
http://store.yahoo.com/ledsupply/l2-0-ir3th60-1.ht ml
http://store.yahoo.com/ledsupply/l2-0-ir5th30-1.ht ml

You can use any sort of LED you like - It basically comes down to:
a) The colour you want.
b) How bright you want it.
c) How big you want it.

You shouldn't connect LED's straight to a battery.

You need a series resistor (In between the battery and the LED). The value of the resistor is calculated using

R = (Vb-Vf)/I.

Vb = Battery Voltage
Vf = Forward Voltage (On Data Sheet)
I = Current (On Data Sheet)

so for this 5mm white LED using a 9V battery Vf = 3.6, I = 30mA => R = 180 Ohms.

Make sure that you connect the LED the correct way round (The long lead should be connected to the '+' terminal on the battery, the short lead to one end of the resistor and the other end of the resistor to the '-' terminal on the battery. If you get it the wrong way round it don't worry the LED won't blow up, the LED just won't work!

Good Luck.

I run a small online retail store, LED Supply. One day last year I got a call:

Hello this is AT&T relay operator 12345...

The person on the other end wanted to order 40,000 of our EverLED LED flashlight bulbs. We only sold 1000 of these in all of last year. At $40 a pop, most people only want to buy one. So right away warning bells went off in my head. Some toolbag wants to buy $1,600,000 worth of product from a retailer he has no relationship with and he is doing it over TTY relay???

I figured I'd try to find out a little more about the individual. I asked him where he was from. "Nigeria." WHOOP WHOOP DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! Needless to say I cut the conversation short.

It was a very difficult exchange, the Nigerian used broken english that neither myself nor the operator could really understand. It must have been very frustrating for the operator, I felt bad for her. The whole exchange took about an hour, it was extremely tedious. And it was a complete waste of my time. Thankfully that hour is ALL I lost.

The Nigerian tried to call me back TWICE both times using the TTY relay, of course I wasn't about to give him any more of my time. Selling $1.6 million worth of product via TTY relay is unconventional, but I don't discriminate against the disabled. I do NOT however do business with ANYBODY in or from Nigeria.
-73, de n1ywb

Hello this is AT&T relay operator 12345...

You can convert any flashlight to LED. These guys have a nifty little LED flashlight replacement bulb in all the normal colors. You can buy one here