Thread: LED Spotlight Terminal

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Hi everyone. This is my first full tutorial on HauntForum. I followed this tutorial by Herman Secret to make some LED spotlights however making the spotlights are just half of the battle in my opinion... (BTW, the prewired LEDS are SOOO worth the extra $)

So I came up with this idea and I will show you how to make a terminal for all of your LED lights. Like I said, this is my first tutorial so tell me if I need to clarify anything.

Here is what you will be making:


What you will need:

• a wooden craft box (I got mine from Michael's)
• speaker wire (you will need it for the LED spotlights anyway)
• electrical wire (again, you will need it for the LED spotlights)
• liquid electric tape
• speaker terminals
• adapter (or whatever power source you're using)
• assorted small screws
• wire caps
• black paint

Tools you will need:

• a drill or screwdriver
• jigsaw
• wire cutter/stripper
• glue gun (and glue sticks) * optional
• a paint brush

Step 1: Take the top (smaller side) off of your box. You can set the top aside for now.


Step 2: Measure your speaker terminals - mine were about one inch long and one and a half inch wide so I traced out a section that I would eventually cut out. I got my speaker terminals HERE. Since I got 20, they were only $0.58 each. In this step, I also drilled holes in the corners so that I could saw out the rectangles easier.

Step 3: Cut out all three sections. Notice that section 3 on the right is smaller because I wanted to fit all the speaker terminals on the box so I did two rows of 7 and one row of 6. Put the sections that you cut out aside for later.


Step 4: Paint the top and bottom black.


Step 5: Screw the speaker terminals into the board. You can see that I didn't space my rows properly and I only could fit one screw on the last 2 rows... they're still fine and secure... I'm not too worried.


Step 6: Turn the box over and fill in any gaps you may have with electrical tape.

Step 7: Next, using spare speaker wire wire the terminals together. You can attach the wire to the terminals by looping the wire through the hook on the back. REMEMBER: Know what side is red and what side is black. I used the copper side on the red terminal side and the silver wire on the black terminal side. I grouped the terminals into groups of four and then connected the groups of four together to the adapter.


Step 8: Use the liquid electrical tape and seal up the loop and wire from the terminal. Put a big dab on top and let it dry overnight. I put on 3 coats of liquid electrical tape just to be sure. I also added a dab of hot glue after the third coat was dry.


Step 9: Wire all the groups together to the adapter. I used wire caps to keep the wires together. I also drilled a hole in the side so the adapter chord could go through.


Step 10: Screw one of the sections that you cut out to the bottom so that your box will stand up and re-attach the top. Plug it in and you are done! Simply make your spotlights and you can attach the ends to the box! Tonight I will take some pictures of the spotlights in the dark so you can see just how bright they are. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and Happy Haunting!



Like I said, I will give clarification on any of the above steps.

Love it. Thanks for the this thread. This IS a project I will do this year. How did you power the box.

Hi MET42. I am using a 400ma power supply like this one: http://www.save-on-crafts.com/acadapter.html. Each LED spotlight is 20ma so to power 20 terminals you would need a 400 ma power supply. Since I got 12 Volt LEDS, it also needs to be 12 volt. I think that's what you mean.... if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

Here's a clearance regulated (regulated is very important or you could blow out all the LEDs by overvoltage spikes) 12v adapter, 2 amp. You'll be sick of soldering before you run out of power for your LEDs.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=129-077

Originally Posted by Xane

Here's a clearance regulated (regulated is very important or you could blow out all the LEDs by overvoltage spikes) 12v adapter, 2 amp. You'll be sick of soldering before you run out of power for your LEDs.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=129-077

Hi Xane - So with that adapter, can you put on less than 100 LEDs and it won't blow them out? (Is that what regulated means? haha) I noticed using my old 400amp adapter with only 3 spotlights at one time made the resistors get kinda hot. Thanks so much for this link and I think I'm gonna buy one!

Regulated means that it keeps a constant voltage. An unregulated supply will only put out that voltage when you draw the same amperage. So if you use a 12v adapter with 400mA but 3 LEDs at 20mA only draw 60mA of the power... your voltage will spike dangerously high, and possibly try to shove 18-24v through the LEDs. However, too high a voltage would make them flash super bright and pretty much immediately kill them afterward so the hot resistors may be due to not using the right wattage. Even if you have the correct amperage draw, an unregulated supply will fluctuate, giving you "dirty power". This is less of a problem for LEDs than it would be if you were powering an amplifier with it, where it would cause hum or buzz in the sound. With a regulated supply it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100 LEDs hooked up as long as you don't go over the maximum amperage.

http://ledcalc.com/

will give you the wattage you need on your resistors. But it could still be due to an unregulated supply giving a higher, but not terminally higher voltage. You could also try using a higher wattage than needed... this won't hurt anything as long as your ohms are correct.

If you have a multimeter/voltmeter, use it to test the adapter without anything else hooked up to it. If it goes to 12v and holds steady (or gives something like 11.8-12.2v and holds steady... cheaper regulated supplies might not be regulated 100% perfectly) your supply is regulated. If the dial swings wildly and finally settles on something like 16v or higher, it's not regulated.

Originally Posted by Xane

Regulated means that it keeps a constant voltage. An unregulated supply will only put out that voltage when you draw the same amperage. So if you use a 12v adapter with 400mA but 3 LEDs at 20mA only draw 60mA of the power... your voltage will spike dangerously high, and possibly try to shove 18-24v through the LEDs. However, too high a voltage would make them flash super bright and pretty much immediately kill them afterward so the hot resistors may be due to not using the right wattage. Even if you have the correct amperage draw, an unregulated supply will fluctuate, giving you "dirty power". This is less of a problem for LEDs than it would be if you were powering an amplifier with it, where it would cause hum or buzz in the sound. With a regulated supply it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100 LEDs hooked up as long as you don't go over the maximum amperage.

http://ledcalc.com/

will give you the wattage you need on your resistors. But it could still be due to an unregulated supply giving a higher, but not terminally higher voltage. You could also try using a higher wattage than needed... this won't hurt anything as long as your ohms are correct.

If you have a multimeter/voltmeter, use it to test the adapter without anything else hooked up to it. If it goes to 12v and holds steady (or gives something like 11.8-12.2v and holds steady... cheaper regulated supplies might not be regulated 100% perfectly) your supply is regulated. If the dial swings wildly and finally settles on something like 16v or higher, it's not regulated.

Okay, thanks - I'm definitely gonna get the adapter you posted above. Thanks again for all of your info!

Nice post! Keeping everything organized is always a challenge.

Just bought all the parts I need to tackle this one. Finally something I can do after I get home from the office that doesn't involve the use of power tools!

Out of curiosity, can you plug multiple speaker wires into the terminals, i.e. run 4 lights off one red & black terminal. I'm wondering if it'll work like it would with stereo speakers.

If it can, then you could (in theory) create 1 terminal and plug all of your lights into that one terminal.