a tutorial to making commercial-look-a-like LED bulbs.
After many attempts to make all sorts of LED-conversions I finnaly found one solution that is simple and efficient. Of course, you do need a great amount of patience in making this but when you consider the countless hours of pure light -low consumption you'll get, it's all worth it. This tutorial is about converting regular GU4(MR11) halogen bulbs to LED bulbs while maintaining full usability as 12V light bulbs that can be used in indoor task or accent lighting.
After many attempts to make all sorts of LED-conversions I finnaly found one solution that is simple and efficient. Of course, you do need a great amount of patience in making this but when you consider the countless hours of pure light -low consumption you'll get, it's all worth it. This tutorial is about converting regular GU4(MR11) halogen bulbs to LED bulbs while maintaining full usability as 12V light bulbs that can be used in indoor task or accent lighting.
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Signing UpStep 1: You'll need the following stuff to start working:
- one halogen bulb (burnt or new since they are really cheap) with no glass cover on front.
- LED's - as many as you want. You may want to keep this number reasonable since more than 22 LED's will make you work painful.
- online acces to http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz , a great LED array calculator you can use to figure out the resistors you'll need depending on your number of LED's and the supply voltage.
- Super Glue & compound glue. You can use other glue as well but super glue sticks fast and I recomend it.
- solder wire, moderate soldering skills, solder gun
- one small piece of 0.2mm aluminium sheet (this is used in printing industry, I work in this field and there are a lot of aluminium plates around here). Any offset printing shop will be kind enough to give you a used one since they use hundreds each month. A cut-out Coca-Cola can will do, once you straighten it.
- a paper perforator (office type, 2-hole punch)
resistors (depending on your needs)
- a few other common household items along with a good amount of patience.
- LED's - as many as you want. You may want to keep this number reasonable since more than 22 LED's will make you work painful.
- online acces to http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz , a great LED array calculator you can use to figure out the resistors you'll need depending on your number of LED's and the supply voltage.
- Super Glue & compound glue. You can use other glue as well but super glue sticks fast and I recomend it.
- solder wire, moderate soldering skills, solder gun
- one small piece of 0.2mm aluminium sheet (this is used in printing industry, I work in this field and there are a lot of aluminium plates around here). Any offset printing shop will be kind enough to give you a used one since they use hundreds each month. A cut-out Coca-Cola can will do, once you straighten it.
- a paper perforator (office type, 2-hole punch)
resistors (depending on your needs)
- a few other common household items along with a good amount of patience.
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I have a question - won't this design draw just as much power as an ordinary halogen light-bulb? I understand that LED's use much less power, but surely the rest of the power is going to the resistors within the circuit to maintain the appropriate voltage/current?
Just wondering, thanks.
Things change when you use high-power LEDs. In that case you need a special LED driver circuit to power those, and that's even more efficient than resistors.
But what about those leds? Thanks
I don't know if i'm misunderstanding something but it seems to me that these are at odds, any help would be great.
Are the 200 ohm resistors meant to be used with a higher voltage? I'm assuming a 1x array because the pack came with the same amount of leds and resistors, is that wrong? can someone explain what will happen if I wire:
(4.5v) > (3vLED) > (200ohm resistor).
(2.) Divide 1.3 volts to .02A ( 20mA) = 65 ohms.
To be safe you can go higher resistance such as 68 ohms or 70 ohms.
I hope I gave some ideas.
where did you get halogen bulb with no glass cover on front?
Its just that I have never heard of compound glue before.
Just wondering, does the stuff you use, have a trade or brand name ?
e.g. 0=black 1=brown 2=red 3=orange 4=yellow 5=green 6=blue 7=purple 8=grey 9=white
Gold 5% Silver 10% None 20%
Bad Boys Ravish Only Young Girls But Violet Gives Willngly.
Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue Violet, Grey, White.
Brown Black Red
1 . 0 x10^ 3 =1000 =1k
mine is
Bad Booze Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well