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-   -   Car LED lamps for the house? (https://ecorenovator.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1245)

Xringer 11-10-10 02:20 PM

Car LED lamps for the house?
 
I just ordered 3 of these 3w LED arrays.. ($9.92USD shipped)

White 8-LED Super Bright Car Light Bulb 3 Watt DC 8-30V - eBay (item 190459203966 end time Nov-20-10 07:52:49 PST)

http://i.suntekstore.com/office_cach...5947_image.jpg

This high quality super bright LED bulb is great to replace your traditional car lamps. It will make your car much more brighter and consume less energy.

* Life expectancy up to 50,000 hours
* The LED base comes with double-side sticker
* Includes a festoon adaptor w/ 30mm long
* Easy to use
* Voltage: DC 8-30V
* Power Consumption: 3 Watt
* 8 Leds
* LED Light Base Dimension: 33mm long & 15mm wide

Package Included:

* 1 x LED bulb
* 1x festoon adapter


Once they come in from China (next month?), I'll check them out to see if they are suitable for under-kitchen-cabinet lighting, and post my findings.

I will use 12v car batteries charged with PV for power..

st2288 11-11-10 08:20 AM

check this out..I bought from them before.. cheap but slow in shipping 1-2 wks
DealExtreme: $8.00 Car White 42-LED Ceiling Dome Light (DC 12V)

Xringer 11-11-10 09:54 AM

Wow! Deal Extreme has a bunch of car replacement LED lamps..
I buy stuff from them once in a while. Some of it's good, and some
of it has to be modified-on-arrival.. :o

The only problem I see with replacing a burned out tail light with LED, is the long shipping time.
But, once you change out those old incandescent lamps, you won't have to worry about them anymore.
(In theory anyways).

Xringer 11-22-10 03:12 PM

They came today!
 
One of them had a little problem.. Should be repairable..

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...Solar/z027.jpg

But the specs (on the two good ones) aren't what I expected..

They said..

* Voltage: DC 8-30V
* Power Consumption: 3 Watt


So, I was thinking maybe 1.5 watts at 13 volts.?.

Nope. At 13v, the flow is 66 ma.. 0.066A x 13v = 0.86 watt..

So there shouldn't be a problem if I forget to turn one of these off at night.. :rolleyes:


Maybe if I use a full 30v, the flow would kick up to 3w.. As the lifespan heads down hill..

Even at less than a watt, they feel warm. About 90 deg F in a cool basement..

I used a fuse holder to test them one at a time.
Later, I'll cut off the car lamp adapters and wire them all in parallel
and see how much light they can provide (as a group) in a dark room.

Maybe I can get near 3 watts! (Using all three lamps)! :rolleyes:

I'm not too encouraged, since my cheapo 3AAA LED flashlights make these things look really weak..

Xringer 12-12-10 05:08 PM

Solar+LED=Bliss?
 
Well, I got another LED array (for a total of four) and did a little current test last night.

I wired all 4 in parallel and connected them to 12.54 volts. They used about 2.7 watts total!
Since they were rated for 30volts, I decided to try two batteries is series.
At 25 volts, they got brighter, but the watt meter displayed over 20 watts!!
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...Solar/z010.jpg

Very warm!! I quickly went back to using 12.54.. I left the array running until midnight,
and checked the battery voltage every hour of so.
The old Toyota battery must have warmed up a little, after sitting on that cold 60f floor,
because in about an hour, the voltage went UP to 12.59v!
It stayed at 12.59v until midnight.

At midnight, I switched to the smaller Honda CRV battery, and let it run until the next morning.

Toyota: 10.8 Wh and Voltage went up for some reason. :confused:
Honda: 18.1 Wh voltage dropped over night. 12.54v to 12.28v

Anyways, I've decided to make these into a small reading lamp for the headboard.
They are good enough for reading and as backlight for watching the little
20" LCDHDTV that's mounted on the wall beside the bed.


Anyways, if my wife and I use this light for a few hours a night, that 2.7w
discharge rate can easily be made up by the 10w PV that's charging the battery.
Under average conditions (unless the sun is absent for weeks on end),
I think for each hour of good sunshine, we should get over 2 hours of good LED lighting.
It's very likely that the SOC will remain high, on average.

gasstingy 12-16-10 04:26 PM

I'm curious if you were able to get the two nonfunctional LEDs to work, and if you did, how?

Electrical wiring and {especially} troubleshooting electrical gremlins has never been my forte. I do have a perfect track record for destroying multimeter's though. :o

Xringer 12-16-10 04:52 PM

LOL! I blasted the little 10A glass fuse in my favorite VOM the other day.
Did some PV current testing and then came back indoors, where I wanted
to plug back into an outlet, to watch my erratic AC line voltage.
Forgot to move the red lead back over the V hole.
It tried to measure 9 Zillion Amps from the wall socket.. But only for 2msec..

~L~E~D
When I looked under the double-sided sticky tape at the PCB, I saw some solder bumps.
Thru-hole stuff. In Ohms mode, I compared the end connections via the + & -
wires with the bumps on a good segment.
One of the end bumps showed open. Hit it with my little soldering iron and presto-fixo.

Trouble Shooting in Stereo. Is when you have one circuit that went bad,
right next to an identical circuit that works. You just put the VOM - on the power supply - and
probe the same connections on both circuits until you see what's different.

gasstingy 12-17-10 07:47 AM

Thanks for the part on how you repaired the LED light. I'm sorry to sound continuously ignorant, but does VOM stand for Volt - Ohm- Meter?

Xringer 12-17-10 09:02 AM

That's what they used to call it years ago.. I guess it's a Digital VOM these days.

I guess all mine are DLCDVOMs (Digital Liquid Crystal Display Volt Ohm Meter).. ;)
The Amp measuring capability is a given.?.

There is some 'Safe Use of Electrical Test Equipment: DMMs & VOMs' at this link..
Safety Procedures for Inspecting Residential Electric Panels, how to examine, how to test electric service panels, how to use volt meters and electrical test equipment safely


I like this type of meter for quickie testing..
http://www.matcotools.com/ProductImages/MD921.jpg
It's uses are limited, but the leads are wired in. No way to forget to move them..

These meters,
http://www.matcotools.com/ProductImages/MD3000.jpg

Make life a bit more difficult. You have to change the function selector AND the probe posistion for some jobs.
Most of the meters I use are this style. Most have fuses to protect the amp circuits.

These things get zapped all the time. Mostly because people didn't sit down
and read about the differences between resistance, voltage and current measurements.

I've seen dozens of students try to measure "The Amps" of a power supply
by sticking a meter across the + & - posts.
This normally occurs just after they look at a diagram showing the load..
http://www.bergerweb.net/xb500/ammeter.jpg
Which is the only way to do it..

It's easy to understand the amp meter when it's compared to a water flow meter.
Gallons-per-hour etc is a metaphor for Amps being Electrons-per-hour etc.

Current is likened to the current in a river. It's a flow rate.

Voltage is like pressure. There is 30 PSI in your tires. 3000 psi, in your scuba tank.
48 volts in my battery bank.. It's just like pressure. Or potential..

It's just a static measurement. Those volts (or PSI) have the potential
to do some work.. :)

The key thing is to start off with Ohm's Law and understand it..
Before you start making Amp measurements.. :D

Of course, remembering to change the leads helps save on fuses.. :o

Daox 12-17-10 09:46 AM

Haha, done that a few times myself. :)


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