Thread: 30W LED VS. Strobe light

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I’ve been curious about using high power LEDs for strobe lights for lightning effect as appose to strobe lights because I like the control that the LED gives you. With the strobe light the only thing you can adjust is the flash frequency. With the LED you can control that as well as the On time of the light. And unlike an incandescent or halogen lamp the LED is instant on and instant off (more or less) so it suits its self well to simulate lightning.

This is the strobe light I tested with. Just a regular old POS from radio shack I got about 10 years ago. Regular sized Xenon tube: http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2102816


This is the LED I will be using. It’s a 30W rated at ~2300LM Cool White. The Cool part is important because its more pure white than soft orangeish white, like an incandescent bulb. It hurts to look at it. I got it off ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWNX:IT
This LED must be heatsinked, or it will fry itself. I used an old hard drive cooler.
Using my bench power supply for testing. ~1.7A! yikes!






I set both lights up 21’ away from the house and waited till dark. I set up the video camera by the curb and here’s what it looks like:




I'm quite impressed with the LED. I'm thinking I'm going to grab a couple more and spread them out to give my whole yard a thick coverage. I think it will be more realistic lightning than a strobe light. Ill have that going synced with thunder. Ive always wanted to do something similar to the first room at Disney's Haunted Mansion in Orlando where your standing in a tall room and the lights go out, and there's thunder and lightning that attracts you to look up, and you see a hanging body in the bell tower above you. I figured I would do that randomly with a body high in the oak tree. Well see.

Hope this helps anyone else whos been wondering about LEDs!

I think you are onto something, I can't believe how bright that is. That will great with thunder going.

Ya, the LED seems to work better. There is definitely a difference between the two. The strobe does not put out nearly as much light as the LED does. The LED lights up the whole front of the house which gives you a really nice effect.

I put together some lightning effects for our haunt for this year using a large DMX strobe. After some fiddling with the DMX commands for the strobe I got it to work really well. I looks just like the effect we see in so many movies When I videoed it though, the camera did not pick up what it looked like in person. It seemed to skip a lot of the flashes.

Chupa,
That's pretty freakin' awesome! I've had some kind of fascination with LEDs for quite a while, and these high-power units on eBay have intrigued me. That looks incredibly bright! I see you were using the constant-current mode of your supply to limit the current on the bench. How are you planning to limit the current, modulate the unit in the haunt? BTW, I've seen a bunch of LED buck supplies on eBay too - althought they were for 350mA and 750mA units.

buckaneerdude,
Most video cams shoot 30 frames a second. And for each frame, the 'shutter' is only open for a short fraction of a second. If the strobe didn't happen within that fraction of a second, it'll miss it.

- Hook

Wow. The LED kicks the strobes butt!!!

Originally Posted by buckaneerdude

I put together some lightning effects for our haunt for this year using a large DMX strobe. After some fiddling with the DMX commands for the strobe I got it to work really well.

I'd be interested in seeing how one of those high powered strobes compares. Something like this: http://americandj.com/ProductDetails...tegory=Strobes

But even if its better I think the price point of the LED is more appealing, and you still have more control over it.

Originally Posted by Hooked_on_Scares

I see you were using the constant-current mode of your supply to limit the current on the bench. How are you planning to limit the current, modulate the unit in the haunt? BTW, I've seen a bunch of LED buck supplies on eBay too - althought they were for 350mA and 750mA units.

I think I'm going to use one of the supplies off ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=320585153017
I'm just going to use a FET for switching controlled by a micro (atttiny). This would allow me to easily sync all the lights.

I'm really itching to grab one of those 100W LEDs now. ~7500 Lumen! I defiantly would need to get a driver for it as my bench PSU only goes to 2A. http://cgi.ebay.com/1PC-BRIGHTEST-10...item41526157c2