DIY LED lighting fixtures

[opiesche]

Hi all,

Wanted to show off some pictures of a more or less recent project

I built some partition walls around an open family room a few months ago, to convert it to an office. In the process of building the walls, I mounted LED transformers (one 48W and one 20W) to two of the studs, ran low voltage wires through the walls and ceiling (the light switches are switching 12V), and custom built some LED lighting.

I used this sort of LED module:

Warm White LED Module 12V Waterproof 5050 SMD 4-LED/PCS Light 20pcs $20.95 Free Shipping @GoodLuckBuy.com

They contain four 5050 type SMD LEDs each, run about 0.7W and output on the order of 60 lumens a piece. A string of 20 of them is around 20 bucks at the link above - I haven't found any LED lights for a lower price per lumen.

I cut a strip of 1/4" plywood about 2 inches wide and about 1 1/2' long, then glued 10 modules each on them (Loctite PowerGrab is a great adhesive for this, by the way!).
Then I cut a strip of acrylic about 1 1/2" bigger on both dimensions than the plywood (I use a jigsaw, since I never can get a straight edge with scoring and breaking the acrylic. Sprayed both sides with Krylon frosted glass spray, drilled 3 holes through both acrylic and plywood, and bolted a 1" binding post through each hole with a matching bolt from the back of the plywood.
The plywood is then simply screwed to the ceiling and the acrylic mounted on the binding posts with the same screws. The results are two fixtures in my office that look like this:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Then I just finished another one for the other side of one of the partition walls, which now forms a rather dark hallway with an existing wall. For this one, I followed the same procedure but different dimensions and used 12 modules instead of 10, and also glued a piece of aluminum L-profile to each long side of the fixture for a more finished look. Fast exposure that shows the LEDs:




And the end of the hall along with it:



So far, I'm pretty pleased with the results. Next I'll build three more of these that will hang from decorative chains in my kitchen to replace the three fluorescent fixtures at 75W a piece I have in there now