Blinking LED Mood lighting

Step 2 Starting the Layout

First thing to do is to figure out how big you want to make this project and how many LEDs you want to be flashing...

So what I did is I wanted to have around 50 LEDs, and I thought I would like them about 2" by 2" grid, so I made six rows by eight rows which equaled 48 LEDs. Then I knew I wanted them to be 2 inches in between each LED so doing the math and keeping a 2" gap around the outside I ended up with a 18" x 14" piece of sheet metal.

Next I measured out my 2" by 2" grid onto the sheet metal with pencil (NOT pen, you need to erase these marks). Then you need to drill a hole just slightly bigger then the LED size you are using at every point that the pencil lines are intersecting. Make sure to place the sheet metal on a piece of scrap wood so when the drill bit goes through the metal it will have something to go into, because if you hit concrete, well lets just say that would be a bad thing.

As you can see in the image below the sheet metal was not the exact measurements that I wanted, but it was precut this way at Home Depot, so I did what I could, at each of the four corners I drilled a extra hole for the bolts, which will be used to elevate the sheet metal off of the ground, or away from the wall if you choose to hang this.

Comments

[scris101]

what kind of resistors? 

[seligtobiason]

well it depends on your Power supply, for the supply that I used... I used 1/4 watt 150 Ohm resistors.

You can go to led.linear1.org/led.wiz  and figure out which resistors you need, It is a VERY handy website, I use it all the time!  I hope this helps, if you have anymore questions please let me know!

[iBito]

What would be the best size for a smaller version of this? Do you think a 9" x 7" version of this would have the same effect? I'm moving and this is the best lighting idea I have found so far other than the ceiling lights. I was thinking of making it into somewhat of a lamp...

[seligtobiason]

Really you can make this any size you want, you just need to decide on the number of LED's and the distance between each LED that you want. I made it this size because I liked the size of the metal piece, so then I figured out the distance I needed to make the LED's etc..

[phantom_shock]

could the project work without using sheet metal?what other things could I used besides sheet metal?thanks.

[seligtobiason]

Sure you can use whatever you want, I choose sheet metal because I thought it would look industrial... but you could use wood, plastic, really anything you want, just use your imagination!