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A Monster LED Array For Irresponsible Fun

Posted by timothy on from the want-for-house-and-car-and-bike-and-projector dept.

Tesladownunder writes "This huge LED is on steroids and then some. It is intended for use as a streetlight. It has a 7000 lumen output at 100W and will burn a hole in a CD case without focusing. And that's without the infrared that a halogen or discharge lamp has. Very efficient and low maintenance. Stronger than HID car headlights or a 500W halogen. Hit the site for lots of data and pics of it in action including burning and irresponsible bicycle luminosity. You'll want one to attach to your keyring, too."

41 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Sharks by ikirudennis · · Score: 5, Funny

    with frickin' LED arrays?

    1. Re:Sharks by digitalunity · · Score: 5, Informative

      I hate to ruin the party, but 70 lumens per watt is pretty terrible.

      Sure, maybe that's a milestone for high power LED's, but it's not that useful compared to a low pressure sodium lamp that gets 160+ lpw. Also, both high pressure sodium and low pressure sodium lamps(2 most common street lamps) have a more pleasant spectrum on the eyes.

      A pink or reddish tone is a lot better at illuminating streets than a faux white spectrum that has high peaks in the blue region.

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
    2. Re:Sharks by vlad30 · · Score: 5, Funny

      A pink or reddish tone

      Thats why its called the red light district?

      --
      Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
    3. Re:Sharks by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's the problem with the lumen scale. The most efficient LEDs are red and blue. The lumens scale weighs green an order of magnitude more than red and blue because it's based on the sensitivity of the human eye. In LEDs, there's a so-called "green gap"; there are no efficient green LEDs, which is right where we need it the most when it comes to lighting that our eyes can see effectively.

      Now, for plants, it's a different story. Plants love red and blue, which is what LEDs do best. But really, we're supposed to be impressed by 100W of LEDs? I have 200W of LEDs in the room next to me (I start my garden seedlings under LED light). A standard UFO grow light is 90W, and many dozens of them sell daily on Ebay alone. What the heck are they doing spending $500 AUD on only 100W of LEDs? I got my UFO for $140-some; that took watching for a few weeks, but you can "Buy It Now" on them generally for $225. The rest of my LEDs are LED xmas lights, which are even cheaper (although the UFO seems more effective... pretty nice product, IMHO).

      --
      "You see, Government is a system that is based on weapons." -- Timster
    4. Re:Sharks by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh, and in case anyone is curious about growing plants under LED lights, I've been documenting the experience here.

      Net result? The UFO works better than the Xmas lights, but the Xmas lights do work. Everything but the lettuce and brassicas seems to thrive under the LEDs, and the lettuce and brassicas would probably thrive if they were right under the UFO instead of on the periphery. Some plants, like the pumpkins, have been acting like the LED light is steroids. So, if you want to grow plants indoors but don't want a huge power bill, I'd go with a UFO or two inside a reflective chamber.

      And yeah, I know, most people just use them for pot :P

      --
      "You see, Government is a system that is based on weapons." -- Timster
    5. Re:Sharks by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also, both high pressure sodium and low pressure sodium lamps(2 most common street lamps) have a more pleasant spectrum on the eyes.

      I don't think I've ever heard anyone claim that low pressure sodium lamps have a pleasant spectrum before. Sure, the bright monochromatic yellow may be intriguing to look at, but the world it illuminates is a weird ghostly yellow and black landscape. In fact, they make a good total-color-blindness simulator. There's a reason that despite the power efficiency, low pressure sodium is used only for utility lighting, and it's the color rendering (that and the restart time).

      With LED lighting, you could potentially save power by turning on full illumination only in areas in use, and keeping unoccupied outdoor areas much dimmer. LEDs can be turned on and off quickly, with negligible startup and restart times. I'm sure that would require careful planning for gradually lighting up an area to avoid dazzling pedestrians or drivers and not creating a flashing-neon-sign film noir effect for people sleeping indoors nearby, but there could be potential. An unused light turned off is very efficient.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    6. Re:Sharks by Zero_DgZ · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, but funky blue-spectrum LED lights will make your downtown area look like a cyberpunk novel cover, which is worth way more awesome points than 160 lumens per watt.

      Plus, if existing phosphor-on-blue-die LED's are any indication these will also make fluorescent objects in your downtown area light up like christmas trees.

    7. Re:Sharks by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

      What?

      160lpw is for the most efficient lamps currently known. So, yes, 70lpw is impressive. Also, the 160lpw low pressure sodium lamps don't have a "pink or reddish tone" they are very orange (actually two orange lines very close together). The high pressure sodium lamps, the white ones with the pinkish tone are more like 100lpw, in which case, the LED is quire close.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    8. Re:Sharks by repvik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Depends on your definition of "pleasant". Orange/Yellow light doesn't affect our nightvision as much as other colors. I can see that as a pretty significant reason to use sodium lamps as streetlights.

  2. Is it just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...or is that page totally fucked up in Firefox?

    1. Re:Is it just me... by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's just you.

      I like side scrolling and searching for graphics.

      It's like a game!

    2. Re:Is it just me... by kheldan · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not you. The page's author used Microsoft FrontPage to create it, so naturally it doesn't render correctly unless you're using IE.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    3. Re:Is it just me... by Firehed · · Score: 3, Funny

      So fucked up, in fact, that I couldn't even save it trying to hack the thing in Firebug. Or Safari's inspector. I mean... I've seen websites that fail outside of IE before, but never like this. It somehow even managed to override it's own inline styles for the table width - by several thousand pixels, no less.

      The one time I try to RTFA and this is what I get. I should have known better.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    4. Re:Is it just me... by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is how you fix it real quick:

      1. ctrl-A and cut the entire page out of Firefox. Paste it into Open Office.

      2. ctrl-A to select all text and change the text color to black.

      3. ctrl-A to select all text and go to the Table/Table Properties menu.

      4. On that menu, change the right boundary of the table to something that is not a mile off the right side of the page.

      You can fuckin' read it now.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    5. Re:Is it just me... by tsa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's a real nerd solution to a problem that shouldn't exist. If the person who made that website wants people to read it it should render correctly in most browsers. Apparently (s)he doesn't care who reads his/her website so I'm not going to bother.

      --

      -- Cheers!

    6. Re:Is it just me... by Fotograf · · Score: 3, Informative

      it is you, i have 30" monitor and found it welcome change from that crapy 800px websites around the world

      --
      God's gift to chicks
    7. Re:Is it just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      here is a better solution:

      In firefox with the Web Developer extension, click the "Linearize Page" under Miscellanious.

      you can now read the page

  3. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The 20 feet tall people will just have to watch where they're walking.

  4. Another use by clarkkent09 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Staring at one of these LEDs from close range will erase the ugliness of the linked site from your memory. Try it

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    1. Re:Another use by davolfman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's functional on IE 6. Which really doesn't do much for this guys geek cred.

    2. Re:Another use by spydabyte · · Score: 5, Informative

      Bad website design aside, this guy is what I would call a da Vinci of our time. Just check out all the HV things he does in his free time after being a MD all day.

      I personally enjoy his gaming references, but there's something for everyone.

      Just... wow. His curiosity and expanse/depth of testing is simply baffling....

      No wonder he didn't have time to design a website, he's not interested in boring numbers and code; he enjoys placing himself in, what I would call, risky situations.

    3. Re:Another use by Dreadneck · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can be a geek without being a computer geek. Maybe his thing is electronics and not coding.

      --
      Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
  5. I RTFA.... by Narnie · · Score: 5, Funny

    While I think the pictures are interesting, the layout makes me wish I didn't read the fucking article.

    --
    greed@All_Evils:~#
    1. Re:I RTFA.... by Eil · · Score: 4, Funny

      While I think the pictures are interesting, the layout makes me wish I didn't read the fucking article.

      I guess you could say he wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch?

  6. Firefox unfriendly by Snowblindeye · · Score: 3, Informative

    That page gets really messed up under non IE browsers. Both Firefox and Chrome show a pretty broken page. IE7 seems to display it OK.

    1. Re:Firefox unfriendly by alriode · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are some hints about this issue in the source code:

      <head>
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
      <title>LED's</title>
      <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">
      <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
      <meta name="Microsoft Theme" content="black 0111, default">
      <meta name="Microsoft Border" content="none, default">
      </head>

      The horror! The horror!

      --
      "Nature is indifferent to our values, and can only be understood by ignoring our notions of good and bad." (B. Russell)
    2. Re:Firefox unfriendly by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 4, Funny

      <meta name="Microsoft Theme" content="black 0111, default">

      I forget the order of the screw flags on the content attribute. The first one is IE, of course. But are the next ones Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, Chrome, Safari?

  7. Did they try to mess up firefox on purpose? by X-Power · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't think it could have been worse than this even if they tried.

  8. Possibly questionable design? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the pictures, the device is clearly an array of individual LED emitters all epoxied into the same housing. From the drive voltage (32v) they would seem to be arranged as several parallel strands of multiple emitters in series. Further, there doesn't look to be much room inside the package for any sort of per-die regulator circuitry.

    That being the case, I'd expect failure of any one emitter to be a serious issue. If, because of bad luck, thermal hot spots, moisture infiltration, or whatever, one of the emitters fails, it will either fail open, and break the circuit for all the other emitters it is in series with, or fail partly or wholly closed, and expose the emitters it is in series with to higher voltage. They will, then, start to die as well, until the whole string is dead.

    Once an emitter goes, you aren't really going to be able to swap it out in a package like that, and I'd expect several of its buddies to swiftly follow it off this mortal coil.

    1. Re:Possibly questionable design? by fractoid · · Score: 4, Informative

      To be fair, it looks more like a "hey we made this for fun" thing than a serious attempt at making a practical ultrabright array.

      That said, LEDs are pretty robust, and tend to fail open circuit rather than closed circuit so if individual LEDs blow in a series chain, they don't destroy others with them. A few years back I did a lot of work with similar arrays to provide controlled lighting for machine vision - you can overdrive them by ridiculous amounts as long as it's only for a very short time (although they do 'wear out' faster with this treatment). We had no troubles passing over 10 times the rated current through standard 'ultrabright' LEDs for up to 10-20 milliseconds.

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    2. Re:Possibly questionable design? by m85476585 · · Score: 3, Informative

      They should be driven by a constant-current supply, so if one emitter in a series fails to short the power supply will just drop the voltage until the current is back to a safe level.

  9. That array is almost as bright... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...as the site designer is dim.

  10. Re:Light vs Heat by clevelandguru · · Score: 3, Informative

    Light has energy that gets converted to heat when it hits a material. Just like the heat generated on earth by the sun light.

  11. Do want. by John+Pfeiffer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I actually bought some LEDs recently from the eBay seller he mentions. Some 250,000MCD 10mm white LEDs, some little DIP-package white LEDs, and some DIP-package RGB LEDs. I saw these LED arrays and I knew I wanted one of the 50watt 3500 lumen ones for a DIY 1080p projector build. (Also possibly to jury-rig an LED replacement for the $400 2000 lumen bulb in my BenQ projector)

    The 7000 lumen one like he's playing around with would be nice if you want to build a projector that doesn't require a light-controlled environment, or is projecting a super-large image. (Or if you want to just burn shit down, lol) I imagine with that sort of output though, it starts to become a real heat problem for the LCD in the projector, just like a conventional bulb.

    These days it's getting so that anyone with a little know-how and some cash can build nearly anything they want. Especially if you just built your own CNC milling machine. ;3

    --

    Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
  12. That guy has one of the best websites on HV stuff by zymano · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Great photos too. Look through his laser and HV section.

    Amazing collection. Interesting character.

  13. Re:So.... by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Somehow I think this might be an unsafe thing to have....

    Luckily we don't currently walk around for 1/2 the day under a light source that's hot enough to burn a hole through a CD case (if it's placed close enough)...

    Hey?

    --
    There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
  14. Warning by Virak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do not look into website with remaining eye.

  15. Burn a hole in that site by carlzum · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow, that looks awful in FF. If you're running Windows and really want to read the article, use IE or the IE Tab plug-in for Firefox. If you have any doubt that FrontPage is the worst thing to ever happen to the web, take a look at the page's source:

    <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">

  16. Gallium Nitride by nitroyogi · · Score: 5, Informative

    The source material for this LED is Gallium Nitride(GaN). Its quite a revolutionary semiconductor material developed first by Shuji Nakamura in the 90s at Nichia Corporation, Japan.
    It has a multitude of applications in different fields - optoelectronics, HF microwave communications and anti-radiation hardening for space vehicles.

    These LEDs are very efficient in the sense that they consume less power and have more lumen output. And they die out gradually, unlike traditonal sources of lights like tubes/bulbs which will immediately fuse off. Which explains why they are robust alternatives for street lights, traffic signals, etc. They need less power, less maintainance and due to their solid state nature are quite tough materials.

    Lot of research has been conducted on them. Here are couple of leading centres for GaN research -
    UCSB - http://my.ece.ucsb.edu/mishra/studygane.htm
    Cambridge(UK) - http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/GaN/

    There is an online journal of Nitride Semiconductor research not updated much now, but very useful -
    http://nsr.mij.mrs.org/

    Check it out.

    Many traffic light signals use these LEDs already across the world nowadays for less power consumption. Watch out for few in your city.
    I remember back in my college days that it was already being touted as a replacement for the century+ old incandescent bulb. Buzz and hype I guess but still with a lot of substance.

    Cheers!

  17. Worst Web Design Ever by hdon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dear God what is this person thinking? I have a fairly huge monitor and this page is still completely unviewable!

  18. Re:So.... by Deltaspectre · · Score: 3, Funny

    I tried this experiment, but the flourescent lighting didn't even succeed in bleaching the color :(

    --
    My UID is prime... is yours?