If I'm not mistaken JB Weld has bits of metal dust in the epoxy mix. What with you being a machinist and all, if you don't already have metal dust, you could whip some up pretty quick.

I bet aluminum dust would be superb.

-AC

Barrels & barrels of aluminum chips, But no aluminum dust.

Gary Gary had experimented with the interface of the copper riser tubes and the aluminum absorber fins of a flat plate solar collector. He concluded the household type silicon caulking had performed admirably.

I'd bet the silicon sealant would bond the two mating surfaces for the expected life of 20+ years were I have seen epoxy dry and the bond fail after a number of years.

Randen

When I used to build electronic stuff for the Man,
I used Heat conducting/insulating epoxy,
to stick heat sinks on top of chips and 'canned' ICs that needed cooling.

It was great stuff, but when I needed some, the adhesives shop had to make it special for me.
When I picked it up, I had 2 hours to apply it, and then board had to be baked of hours in an oven, to cure the epoxy.
After cooling overnight, it would take dynamite to remove those heat sinks..

That was great stuff, but I only used it because I wanted insulation too.
If you don't mine electrical conduction, there is cheaper stuff around.
Some is sold in syringes for use by CPU hackers. But some of that isn't real cheap.

I've used JB Weld on heat sinks and had it fail after long 180F runs..

Xringer

I realize that the best option of a lab making up some bullet-proof stuff is just not I the cards. And to buy something on line is something I don't want to wait for and its going to be expensive. On the Randen shelf I do have some 5 min epoxy and regular slow set. On the aviation shelf I do have some fuel tank epoxy. (expensive and extremely slow but bullet proof).

I think I'm going to use the silicon route. The back of the LED modual is quite large and a thin coat of silicon over the large area should do the trick.


Randen

I use GE silicon on a lot of stuff and have even fully encapsulated electronics in the stuff.
I assume it conducts heat to some degree, or active parts in the 'capsule' would over-heat..

If the rate of heat transfer is fast enough to keep the LED module from over-heating, you're good..

Some of the old Intel CPU chips had such fast heat rise times,
you couldn't turn them on with a badly installed heat-sink for even 30 seconds..
Those heat sinks had to act quickly..

48" LED replacement of fluorescent lamps
 

Slowly and surely all is being changed out to LED tech. Although the garage lights don't get much use the reduction of energy will never make a ROI.

Three of the six fixtures the ballasts had died. So what's one to do. Order new LEDs and replace them all.

$150.00 for 12 LED tubes. Quick calculations puts the ROI at 50 yrs for the amount their used.

We did confirm the current draw between the old fluorescent and new LEDs.
The reduction was 12%

The plus side the garage is now extremely well lite with 6000K (daylight) light.

Randen


http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...s-sam_3046-jpg

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...s-sam_3048-jpg

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...s-sam_3049-jpg

Jeez Luiz, $150! Lemme take a pic of what I rigged up and post it.

12V wall wart, rigged to side outlet of dead fixture: free (old ballast disconnected)
http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...psjypmkgjz.jpg


LED light strips, 7W 50cm 36 SMD5050, 5000K $3 each
http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5nmua3b7.jpg

Sink view from below: (Yes, I know it's not straight... Ur not supposed to look directly at them cuz they're BRIIIGHHTTT!)
http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...psoafqruqb.jpg

Comparison to 23W 3000K Sylvania CCFL in ceiling fan:
http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...psw7hisvif.jpg

By itself at night:
http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...pstqus7t3h.jpg

Just don't let an electrical inspector see what you did there. Wire nuts should be inside a junction box. There might be an issue with non-temporary lightning not being hard wired but I'm not too certain about that part.

I live in Kentucky, the land of no codes...

If I had to, I could hide the whole thing in a box. The low voltage wire is the only thing that would be outside the box.

My point is that the strip lighting is not expensive and easy to rig up to what have you. It runs off 12 volts, no matter how much gets installed. I wired this one up to the existing switch, so it draws no parasitic power when shut off.

It's not clear how you are current-limiting the power to your light(s).

-AC

Most 12V LED strips have built in current limiting.

It's not clear how you are current-limiting the power to your LED light(s).

-AC

I'm assuming these are automotive 12v strips that are usually used for under-dash effects and probably just have a resistor in series with the LED strip to make the current appropriate for the standard 13-14ish volts that cars run off of. Most of the ebay auctions in that price range with the description he gave are advertising these for automotive use. Curious what a kill-a-watt says for their usage since a post I was looking at said light output wattage as opposed to the actual input wattage. If it isn't PWM it could be burning a fair bit through the resistor.

Single Color Strip Lighting | Elemental LED Academy
What is the difference between 3528 LEDs and 5050 LEDs |SMD 5050 SMD 3528

The 5050 led strips I bought have three emitters in each chip. Three chips are wired in series with a 150 ohm resistor for each leg of 3 emitters. The 3 series strings are tied together at each end. Since each white led drops around 3.3 volts, the resistors drop whatever is left past about 10 volts. To me, the simplicity of a chip resistor is well worth the fraction of power lost vs running some kind of current controller that has a bad reputation of sensitive and unreliable operation. These things are not complex, so they are much less likely to break than something much like a computer power supply.

http://i02.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/575/4...temp1_3522.jpg

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...psn20afuzi.jpg

Another cool thing about these strips is that you can cut them to length and use the individual bits to install them however you want to. The strips I bought were housed in a little extrusion for wall washing or bar lighting:

http://image.dhgate.com/albu_333512755_00/1.0x0.jpg

I just slid the strips out of their shell to mount them flat.

I am using LED lights and I m happy
 

I have been using LED lights for the last two months and I am happy with it. Yes, they are expensive as compared to the normal CFL's. But, they provide me sufficient light. I have installed both the LED tube lights as well as the LED bulbs. The LED lights provide some amount of bluish color in the light, but not completely blue. The LED tube lights provide the same amount of light as the normal tubelight, but are more efficient than normal tablets. I am using two LED bulbs one for my bathroom and one in my garage, it provides ample amount of light.

LED Flood light replacing Metal Halide
 

As AC Hacker coined the phrase "I'm on a Jihad" to reduce my electrical consumption.

The existing Flood lights are 175 watt metal Halide. They will be replaced with 25 watt LEDs. These are some Chinese LEDs that look pretty nice How ever the bracket that was supplied would in all likelihood not tolerate the Canadian winter wind. I'd made a more substantial aluminum bracket.

Time is of the essence here as winter is going to be freezing the ground and my installation will require a little digging and a little bit of concrete to anchor the metal post.

Being close to Christmas my Mrs. is in decoration mode and outside embellishment of lights is in the works. It usually involves a number of extension cords so the LED flood light mount will also sport a receptacle that will reduce the number of cords. The flood light circuit is also monitored with a timer so this will be really handy.

Randen

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...s-sam_3104-jpg

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...s-sam_3105-jpg

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...s-sam_3106-jpg

Too much time on your hands. Get that glycol in the loops, haha

My LED lighting indoors has been working great. We have not had one LED blub fail in over a year.
I only have two outdoor LED flood lights so far. Those are in sheltered fixtures.
The LED weatherproofing didn't hold up..

On the plus side, the lights don't come on a lot, so the power usage isn't too high.

I'm pretty sure that bracket will hold haha. :)

I just read this whole thread straight through.

It's interesting how thoughts have changed a bit from the original thread in 2008 until today, at the end of 2014.

Seems like the exact same conversation we all had going from incandescent to CFL.

In rough order:
1) This is an over-priced novelty
2) I don't like the color of these new bulbs
3) They work differently with dimmers
4) I don't like how fast/slow they start
5) I guess the price is coming down
6) I guess these are about the same as the old bulbs now
7) I can get them in different colors? Cool!
8) Why didn't I buy these sooner!
9) We call these "normal bulbs".

I just recently changed my whole how over to LED.
The month after that, I had one of my lowest electric bills EVER. (And that was coming from the whole house being CFL before LED.)

Find the bulbs you like. Buy them on sale. Buy them in bulk.

My current favorite light bulb is A TCP brand 60-watt equivalent (8.7 watt) 5000K color temperature, medium base bulb. The color is a nice "sunny day" daylight. They are bright, they come on instantly, they don't get hot, and they use little electricity.

Buy them in a six-pack from Home Depot for $6 per bulb. 22 year life-span.
HOME DEPOT TCP BULB LINK

Their incandescent color temperature bulb is nice too, although it's a little on the warm side at 2700K. (The photographic standard is 3200k.)

The reflector style bulbs for can lights are available at a similar price, and I've been using those as well.

Also, check your local hardware stores. They are starting to have "Sale Wars" over LED bulbs. Ace had lots of bulbs for $6 each and I saw a pile at Menards for the same.

Just about the only place in my house now that ISN'T LED is the appliance bulbs in the oven and the clothes dryer. Both those locations, the light is used minimally, and can get to temperatures that would melt plastic LED bulbs.

PS: I also just the other day found out about "Direct Replacement" 48" LED tubes. Sylvania/Osram has an LED tube that just pops in place of a T8 fluorescent. You don't have the modify the fixture at all! (No more snipping out the ballast and rewiring!)
It's VERY bright, and the 4100K color looks much nicer than the 4100K color I've ever seen on fluorescents. It might be that it's missing the notorious fluorescent "green-spike".
http://www.menards.com/main/p-2407785-c-7482.htm

I just tried some LED replacement MR16 bulbs using an existing 12 volt transformer. They flickered so much I had to revert the the previous bulbs. Is this typical? Faulty bulbs? Should I have changed the transformer?

We needed to replace some old under-counter kitchen lighting.
Got two of these at Lowes Shop Utilitech 12-in Plug-In Under Cabinet LED Light Bar at Lowes.com

They have a touch button to turn them On.
One more touch is half power and a second is OFF.
http://images.lowes.com/product/conv...01992434lg.jpg <-- bottom end has slave socket

There is a link cable (included) to plug a 2nd (slave) lamp into the master lamp.

I installed one under a counter and my wife loves it. It's out of sight and is very easy to operate.

I had a problem with the second one..
I wanted it higher and to be operated by a remote switch..
We use an IR motion sensor to control this one. Wouldn't work, because of the touch switch.. (default is off at power up).

So, I reversed the AC input. Plugged the power into the Output connector.
The output meant to power a slave lamp. Worked fine! :D

It comes on when we walk up to the sink.. Goes off after we leave the area.

The specs on the package are at odds with the site spec.
800 lumens
11.5 watts

Not cheap, but provide excellent light..

Measurement of under-counter w/o remote switching

On 11.4W
Low 3.0W
Off 0.6W

Brilliant idea , wiring the motion activated controller into the ballast itself / socket. I want to add motion detection to my bathroom light and after thinking on it .. possibly the outside doorstep light.

After you get older, you won't like your bathroom light coming on automatically.
Especially if it's really bright, and your eyes are adjusted for 3AM sleeping mode..

The kitchen sink light is great in the winter, because not much outside light gets into the kitchen.
We've been using a little 20w fluorescent tube in the sink overhead and it didn't like
being switched on and off 30 times a day.. I hope the LED PSU will do better.

The under-cabinet (over-counter?) light was also a really old 20w fluorescent tube.
It was hard to turn on and off, and wasn't really located in the best location..
Now it's very easy to get to and it's right over the prime work area.

There was once a window above the sink. Now it's just an opening to the den.
So, I used the top frame of the old window, as my light mount.
It provides pretty good light and isn't hard on the eyes when getting a drink late-nite..

PS:
When I installed these lights, I also installed some strips of silver (metal) tape on each side
of the LED arrays. The tape reflects any light that would have fallen on the wood, down into the room..

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...eds-ledkit-jpg

I know of a house with 4 editions on it every doorway is at a different level even the kitchen is a add on, funny what happens when the home handyman is given free range !

The house was once a tiny loggers bunkhouse ..

A transformer running on the 120V AC is going to put out 12V AC, and that will cause 60Hz flicker. You need an actual power supply to get 12V DC. It has to have a diode bridge, and a capacitor and a transistor, etc. in order to have smooth DC.

The lights are intended to run on 12 volts AC not DC. The original bulbs were OK in that. So are you saying that in order to use LED bulbs I need to change the supply to DC? Are there any other issues to be aware of in doing that?

@SDMCF:

would you please help identify the following:

(1) your original transformer, the secondary (output) side, is it supposedly 12V DC or 12V AC

(2)the LED MR16 type bulb, is it a brand name unit or

My hunch is that the transformer (supposedly 12V AC) whereas the MR16 type LED replacement bulb maybe running in half-wave rectification configuration (the cheepest means to save diodes, and still get the rectification job done) or the bulb circuit is intermittently faulty (driver part may be faulty).

Ive seen some very crude Xmas LED lights configuration (typical LED flickering) due to half-wave rectification used (to save cost on the manufacturing side). Hope this is not your issue.

Q.

Amazing how far LED's have come. My employer has applied to the local energy supplier for a commercial program to change all the lighting in his hog barns to LED. Payback period is quick.

Yup things have changed pretty quickly. Leds are now becoming the standard. I'm a big fan of using tape led light now. 16' for $8 and power supplies are pretty cheap now too. Over and under cab lights in the kitchen with it provide lots of indirect lighting at night. I don't even turn the regular lights on for most stuff now.

The colors and cri of leds are getting more options now as well. Many of the early leds were way too yellow or way too blue. In commercial apps it's all we use for can lights and other bulbs. They are just now getting better at the T8 replacements as its taken a long time to get them in the "daylight" color that is used in commercial the low k stuff was too yellow got complaints and makes everything look oddly yellow. Try going into a large conference room with soft white to yellow lighting and it looks awful and makes your eyes work harder.

I'm really impressed with how far they have come in such a short time. 6" led can lights as cheap as $18 with 90 cri and 1100 lumens is impressive. Though need a dimmer....

Elcam , with the tape LED strips are you required to use a proper heat sink or will the metal base secured to a surface suffice ? What I a thinking is using the LED strips in a older 4ft fluorescence light fixture , that I would otherwise discard and just install something more advanced / economical.

The led is basically a tape with 3M adhesive on the back. I haven't seen any need to mount it to a metal backing. They produce very little heat at all. I made a 3/8 x 7/8 wood strip with a dovetail routed in it offset to one side. Stick the tape in the groove. Then use hot glue on the edge up under the dovetail to permanently lock it into place. I don't trust the adhesive. The offset gives you an area to drill mounting holes in.

I used 3 rolls in the kitchen. If they are left on all day long they aren't even warm to the touch. I haven't seen any recommendation to mount this style to a heat sink yet and don't see a need as anything you stick it to should dissipate the tiny bit of heat.

Also going to use it to light up the corner pantry by making a door trim for the tape to mount in vertically. Oh I'm also a woodworker so I have the shop to make whatever I need.

Great news, I am going to buy about 4 feet of it to mount onto the fixture , It dawned on me that I can stick it to the ballast cover for mounting plus its a good heat sink , although it does not need it the placement will be perfect.
I will pick up a power supply at the same time as the strips , they are dirt cheap I noticed before.
I already have a few remote controls with PWM made specifically for LED control , brightness on off etc. that I have not used yet , that will will work great for the hack.

thanks for the idea !

I just bought 2 of these 20 inch 7w led strips , although this model is somewhat brighter then the tape they where just $5 each on eBay and from North America. my Light is getting hacked for sure now.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...-led-strip-jpg

Edit to add: I bought Two more for 4 in total , I will mount 2 on one side of the sloping ballast cover and 2 on the other side so the light spread is even and more useful , well with the slope on the ballast cover it requires 2 on each side to avoid shadows. It will look and be more professional with 2 rows of them instead of 1 row secured in the middle.
I bought the driver also , A 110v 12v 5A 60w driver to drive the combined 28w LED aluminum strips. , it was under $10

I replaced all lights in the home with LED's this year, except for a small light in the oven. I bought them via aliexpress.com (there are many sites like this) which ship them to you straight from China. Takes about a month to get to you, but with free shipping and costing about $0.50-$2.00 each you can't go wrong. Even replacing the CFL's I had made economic sense. I think it took me 2 months to break even and they're still going strong.

Apart from them being completely made from plastic, there's nothing wrong with them.

This is lelemei from Shenzhen,China. I am working as a technical engineer in Shenzhen Yicai Lighting Co.,Ltd. I'm very happy to work here as an engineer of led lighting industry.Here in this place, I will be happy to share with you my knowledges and experience about this led lighting industry. Will also be happy to exchange your ideas.

Directional light is much brighter per watt then 360 degree light sources


Something to consider about LED replacement tubes for T8 fixtures is that the LED replacement bulbs emits light at a 110 degree pattern vs the 360 degree pattern given off by T8 fluorescent bulbs. In this case, only about 30% of the light given off by the t8 fluorescent is actually hitting the intended target.
Most of the lumen's emitted from a conventional t8 tube is lost to the ceiling and upper walls , reducing the effectiveness of the watt draw.