Official LED Micro Spotlight inspiration thread ;)

**tranzlusent** · 08-13-2011,10:55 PM

Ok, I'm actually kind of surprised that someone else hasn't started this thread yet because I'm pretty sure that everyone that ordered the spotlights in the group buy have been as excited as I have to receive these and begin testing. I know that it has been discussed somewhat in other threads, but I think that these are a big enough deal, and they are something that is popular enough to start a new thread about, right???

So, I'll first ask what are some of your ideas so far?

Where are some of the places you immediately thought of placing these?

I know some of you ordered hundred's of these, are you really planning on walking around and turning these on and off? Changing that many batteries?

The first thing I thought was dumping the batteries and stringing them all together and powering them myself, for a couple of reasons. I already notice the difference in intensity between them. Batteries being one of the reasons, these things will shine their true intensity with a solid source of power behind them. Also, I ordered 40, and wasn't planning on using all of them until I saw how awesome they are and realized how much intensity they can bring to a haunt, now I will probably be using all of them.

Another thread shows us a hack using small pieces of dowel and thumb tacks to power them. I think I may go the route of soldering for this many lights, and I'm sure many of you are going this route as well. Can you share wiring diagrams for the people like me who can't write those things? What kind of boards or controllers are you thinking would be the best route?

Anyway, I could ramble about these things for a while, so I'll shut up for now and listen. I can't wait to hear/see everyone's idea's!

**Xane** · 08-14-2011,10:09 AM

I actually think the dowel idea is better, it was a pain to try to solder these things to change them to AA batteries (which makes 'em last forever). However, the main issue is this: If you want to use a power supply that is not 4.5v regulated, you need to know the voltage and amperage needed by what you're powering. The circuitry inside the spotlights may already have resistors in it, I don't remember if these specific ones did. So how do you calculate what resistor you need to use in order to use a 5v or a 12v power supply, which are much more common? There's no way to tell. So this year I'm buying bare, wide angle super bright LEDs to make powered spotlights and the leftover battery spotlights from last year soldered to AA batteries so they pretty much last forever (or all month, at least).

**knome** · 08-14-2011,11:49 AM

Finding the right resistor is easy you take the voltage of the LED and subtract it from your power supply voltage and use that value and the current value of the led and divide to get your resistance value. like if you have a 12 volt power supply and a 3.4 volt LED at 30 milliamps you take the 12 volts minus 3.4 volts which equals 8.6 volts divide that by 30 milliamps which is .030 and you get 286.66 ohms.

**Xane** · 08-14-2011,12:15 PM

Knome: the problem being you have no idea what the milliamp draw is for these little battery powered spotlights. There's no specs other than that they use 3 1.5v batteries (and button cells usually only actually output 1.3v) so you know they require "about" 4.5v. But you don't know what the amperage needed is since they don't have specifications. Also I think there's a resistor in some of them because 4.5v is way too high for a red LED, and you would have to ID the resistor as well. If you buy bare LEDs they always have the voltage and amperage specified on the package.

**ctarpey** · 08-14-2011,12:29 PM

i like this thread!! i think we all have so many dffierent ways fro led lighting

**witchymom** · 08-14-2011,01:17 PM

i finally found some of these at a DT i rarely go to!

while i wish i was smart and mechanically inclined enough to convert to an AA battery... I... am not.

So i will use them how they are, on halloween night only. I have a really small display, though I will probably turn them on temporarily a few times for pics, company, daughters bday party, etc... my other lights remain on throughout the month, but im not changing batteries every day and/or turning off and on every day LOL

how long do you think these rinky watch batteries will last in them?

**Hooked_on_Scares** · 08-14-2011,01:55 PM

Xane, knome - most of the small, standard LEDs are safe to 20mA

- Hook

**tranzlusent** · 08-14-2011,02:50 PM

So what's the difference between the dowel hack, and just soldering them?? It sounds like the dowel hack gets the same result as soldering, you just don't have to solder them all. Also, the dowel hack might be a bigger pain in the arse trying to get the dowel just the right length, then sticking all those thumbtacks in, seems a lot more tedious than just soldering IMHO, although both are very tedious

.

**Xane** · 08-15-2011,10:28 AM

I'm not good at detail soldering so I was worried I was going to set the plastic on fire in the process. I did wire some of them to 5v DC power supply last year using 20mA as a guess, but the reds and whites dimmed out to almost nothing after about a week so 4.5v/20mA was definitely too much power to be shoving through them (I suspect the voltage was more of a problem than the amperage, if you're going to do this, calculate for lower voltage, I think 2-3v is closer to standard for red ultrabrights). Also some of the resistors got very warm, not dangerously hot but more than they should have been, so they were definitely the wrong resistors but I don't remember which ones they were. I do wonder if they'd burn out using the batteries for a long time as well - these things really aren't designed for long term usage! But the ones I have left I'm keeping for use on larger batteries in places where I can't easily run wires from my power supply. Now I need to find a good deal on an assortment of bare LEDs. People keep telling me digikey but I think I'd rather pay more than navigate that travesty of a website.

Also keep an eye on the positive and negative sides, I wound up having to relabel wires or wrap them in colored electrical tape when I'd solder them on backwards