10mm LED's seem dim.

1055 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by SaltwaterServr, Oct 25, 2014

SaltwaterServr

Discussion Starter · Oct 24, 2014

I bought six different colors of prewired 10mm 12v LED's from Lighthouse LED's. Some of the colors are very bright, green and blue, and red to a slight lesser extent.. Others such as yellow, orange, purple, are pitiful. One yellow isn't even enough to decently illuminate a single skull.

The intensity doesn't change if I'm using 1 light or 9 that I have connected, or if I'm using a foot of wire or 20'.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but dang, an orange and yellow could barely light up a single tombstone. I'm going to need 3 oranges, a pair of yellows and a red to highlight my corpse in my burned at the stake prop.

My power supply is a 1amp 12v regulated type I got through Lighthouse as well.

Thoughts?

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nochevys

· #2 · Oct 24, 2014

I agree with everything you said except as I string more together They get dimmer the more I add. Yellow are real bad. red blue and green are not bad.
I bought mine on ebay straight from china...

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CreepyCreations

· #3 · Oct 24, 2014

Part of the problem called "being human". LOL Your eyes are more sensitive in the green part of the spectrum (and blue is right next door to it) so those seem brighter. But, there could also be a difference in the actual number of lumens the particular color of LED produces. All LEDs are not created equally. I purchased a couple of different LEDs recently (red and green) and the green, as it turns out, were rated at a significantly higher lumen output for a given amount of current.

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SaltwaterServr

Discussion Starter · #4 · Oct 25, 2014

Thanks y'all. I know for next year to wire sets of 6 together for lighting effects. As cheap as they are, you can't go wrong.

Call it a bonus that I know how to solder now. I've been able to weld for 25 years, never had anyone teach me soldering.

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Blarghity

· #5 · Oct 25, 2014

Adafruit has a great photo illustrating different color LEDS from the dimmest to the brightest.

https://learn.adafruit.com/system/assets/assets/000/003/892/medium800/leds_LEDrainbow.jpg?1396803438

Dimmest to brightest would be red, orange, yellow, yellow green, green, green blue, blue, indigo/UV, and white. One is missing from the pic, indigo/UV

Anyway, this is one of the reasons why I use superbright white LEDs and then color them myself by using theatrical color gels. My other reason for that is selection - 300+ colors available in color gels vs. 9 for LEDs.

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SaltwaterServr

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 25, 2014

Blarghity said:
Anyway, this is one of the reasons why I use superbright white LEDs and then color them myself by using theatrical color gels. My other reason for that is selection - 300+ colors available in color gels vs. 9 for LEDs.

Yeah, that's definitely the way to go.

I'm looking at Lighthouse's specs on the green LED's and they're showing 18k-20k mcd brightness. The purple/UV's are only 2,500 to 3,500 mcd. That's a pretty darn big drop off.

The yellow/gold that seems weak is only listed at 9,000-11,000 mcd.

Reds: 11k-13k mcd
Blue: 12k-14k mcd
Clear White: 15k-18k
Orange: 10k-12k

Of course I didn't buy any white. These specs are for the prewired 12v 10mm LED's.

Ah well, next year.

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