Thread: Plug and Play LED Lighting

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Last year during the big day it became evident that I really needed better lighting in my cemetery scene. It looked great during the day but after dark it was difficult to see the tombstones that I had spent so much time making. So after a lot of research on this site and others I came up with the following build. I had the following goals:

1) As cheap as possible
2) Easy to setup and store (plug and play)
3) The desired effect
4) Any one can do

I purchased 15-10mm brilliant blue LED’s from Electronic Goldmine and 5-10mm red super brights from Radio Shack. I used 100 ohm resistors on each to get the desired voltage. The USB hubs I got for free from work. These are to old 1.0 standard so they have been all replaced with the new 2.0 ones. All USB connectors have come off old computer stuff. I had a dozen just lying around the house. You can also go to Habitat Stores, Good Will, etc. and find anything with the connector on it to cut off.

The power comes from a standard computer power supply. The main connector has 4-5 volt supplies that easily power the lights. The 22/2 wire I bought at an electrical supply store. I was able to buy 1000’ roll of wire for 35 bucks. Granted I really didn’t need 1000’ but I couldn’t find anything close in price in smaller amounts. I did end up using about 400’-450’ when all said and done. PVC is just water supply line. Between all the fittings and pipe I ended with about 18 bucks into all of it. After all is said and done I ended up with about $2.50 into each light.

****Disclaimer! Electricity can kill you. Please be careful!****

Here is the LED with the 100 ohm resistor soldered on. On these specific LED’s one lead wire was shorter than the other. I soldered to the shorter one. This worked out well with the polarity of the LED.



Here are the lights painted


Wiring for the USB is here. You will use the red and black wires in the power supply wire and the USB females. Connectors 1 and 4



Here is the complete setup. I have one light plugged into each hub to give you the idea.




I will put the power supply and hubs in fake looking rock in the center of the cemetery. This way if you have lights with 30' of wire it really gives you 60' of coverage. I also put a velcro strap on each light so it stays organized. Well there it is. Don't hestiate to ask any questions. May the scare be with you!!

Great lights and easy to read how to.

Cool idea to use the USB hubs to distribute power. Do you have any plans to weatherproof them?

very well thought out I like the usb hub idea

Hedg12,
I will making a weather proof enclosure for the power supply and hubs. I plan to use something like a small plastic tub or something similar. Cover it with foam and make it look like a rock. Shouldn't be noticable in the graveyard. I will pull air from a down tube for cooling though the heat is minimal.

It's a great idea and yes, very well thought out but, if i may ask? why the trouble to go to a USB power supply when you can use WAL-MART's and wire a bunch in series or paralell? Not an attack, just asking. I do understand the whole "plug and forget" thing but you could do the same quite easily with smaller guage wire and rated power supplies or even Christmas-Type LED's. Seems to me a lot of expense for the hubs and USB cables for this sort of thing no?!..just asking..... I realize you got all the stuff (cables and hubs) for free but for someone to build this from scratch ....$$$$$....trust me, i'm a HUGE computer geek.

Here is a cheap and easy way to do led lighting. Walmart has led night lights for maybe 2-3 each! They have blue, green, white, no red unfortunatley. The led buld is self contained, it is the led with a clear protective plastic buble around it, it has a standard screw in base, you just screw it into a standard nightlight and plug it in. You may want to take the nightlight sheild off and paint the housing black. I bought a few and it works great! you should have no more than 4-5 bucks in each light. You have to buy the bulbs and the nightlight seperate and I think they come in 2 packs.

Scruffywolf,

You sure could wire a bunch of Wal-Marts in series or parallel, always more than one way to skin a cat. Great suggestion! The reason I went with the single computer power supply for power and the USB setup is that I had most of the stuff already. Between my stuff and what our IT department junks, there was no cost involved. When I shopped for a way to plug/unplug these lights it did get pricey. I do agree that if you had nothing and went and bought everything new it wouldn’t be cost effective. But with it being March and a little GoodWill/Salvation Army/Habitat Store/Yard Sale shopping you could do it awful cheap. I setup my haunt up three different times in three different locations over the month of October. I was/am in need of a way to setup easily and more importantly be able store everything in an organized matter.

Iv done this before and If you don't use the right resistor your computer will have a bunch of pop-up messages.

Huh?????????????????????