Mighty Mini LED RGB Flood

[John]

The board is bright....the folks that came to the TASL meeting saw how bright mine were. We had one pointed directly at a projection screen and it looks quite bright.

I've about decided to skip the terminal blocks and solder the wires directly to the PCB...

But Mark, I wasn't there to see it !

[Dave H]

I was surprise the other night when I was holding only one flood on how wide the vertical and horizontal spread was. I'm sure John video will show this when he get it posted. John just need to get Al there will his old video camera to tape it for him in exchange for a CCR.

Thomas

Is anyone entertaining putting "Barn Doors" on their floods to control the overspill of light ??

I am planning on using an Utilitech 250 w 4 way work light that Lowes currently has on clearance for $5.19. It will need a couple coats of paint to dull out the safety orange finish but the primary reason is the lense frame is a true rectangle. I thought recycling the internal reflector might work but now leaning toward 4mm coro.
Any thoughts or comments ??

[John]

The video demo is here:

http://www.christmascarolina.com/for...=5627#post5627

[Al in Raleigh]

Now, now John. If you want me to bring my crappy camera and shoot crappy videos you just need to ask and not bandy about it. I would send Walter but he would figure out how the crappy camera worked, and I would get all mad and that wouldn't help matters.

Don't get all snooty about my camera's battery usage either. My camera keeps those ships coming from China full of batteries. Sailors have to eat too.

[John]

Now Al, I like your 8 track video camera. (Just glad I don't have one though.)

I would be glad to have you come over and shoot crappy videos just like I do, and would even furnish all the red cup contents you desire, but I can't afford to furnish your camera batteries too.

[TGabriel]

Been running mine on test mode for the past 1 1/2 hour this evening. No problem so far, no heat but the resistors get a little warm. The blue to me could be a little more brighter. Maybe add a couple more LED like the red 16 instead of 12.

Thomas

[mschell]

Thomas,
My guess is the value of the resistors that CeCe includes with her packages is a little high, and therefore reduces the brightness of the Blue and Green. If you have a multimeter, you might check the voltage across one of the resistors for the blue. The LEDs want to run about 100 mA for full brightness. Divide the voltage reading you get by the value of the resistor to get the current flowing thru the LEDs. 100mA is .1 A. If you have much less than .1A, then changing the resistor to a lower value would make that color brighter...

[Al in Raleigh]

Walter and I tested the current to the boards built from the group buy components. The current is 2 times what it should be.DO NOT POWER UP YOUR BOARDS UNTIL THIS IS LOOKED INTO. If you do, then you will likely fry the LEDs. I will try to calculate the values for the LEDs tonight if my stupid internet connection works long enough.

[mschell]

Al, I've built 4 sets and don't seem to see the same thing.

What current value are you seeing going thru the terminal strip? For each color?

I measured these and the one with the highest current was Red.

And I've had all of them powered up multiple times.

[Al in Raleigh]

Hi Mark,

I saw 175mA to 225mA at 24VDC on all 4 colors. I checked it with 2 different meters and the power source was 24.0VDC.

[Al in Raleigh]

Mark,
I am wrong. I should have looked at the schematics. There are 2 current paths per color each consuming 100mA thus making 200mA per color. I am sorry for the confusion.

Walter, we should measure the currents again. This time recording the exact current in each color. I measured 225mA and can't remember the color. We'll do this tomorrow. I also measured 175mA.
Al

[John]

I set up my Memorial Day display on Saturday / Sunday May 22/23. As part of it this year, I decided to try out 6 of the Mighty Minis. Figured it woulf be a good time to work out the mounting and see just how well they would do. Have three of them on the right side of the house (not shown in photo) and three on the left side. Just have them rotating on a red white blue cycle, every six seconds.

[TGabriel]

How well did they do on your house? Any video?

[John]

They did pretty well, Thomas. No, no video. Since my house is red brick, I tried to adjust them to illuminate the white trim as much as possible.

[kidcole]

I revived this old topic so I could show my progress. My MM floods are about 80% done and I finished the 24v DC control box .. Pics attached: