10w RGB Flood Light - Reverse Engineering

[Dave H1]

Hey i know this an older topic, but i recently found similar 10w RGB floods online for just over $10 a piece which makes them very affordable for me, but they require hacking as mentioned above the one i have that i "experimented" with before reading the forums of course, was your type C which had only one LED controller unit with a remote Eye sticking out of some black resin like stuff. So I just cut the wires off of it then extended the 4 wires from the LED unit and wired them into my CMB24D controller card, which is where i think i made the mistake when i turned it on i think i blew out the Red in the RGB set up... as i get blue and i get green, so of course when i couldnt do it on my own i reasearched and found this thread. Just wondering what resistors i should use for this as i wil be hooking it up to the LOR CMB24D i have a few others that i have not "experimented" with and want to make sure i dont destroy any more due to my own stupidy of not reading first. I also am going to be using RGB ribbons to the controller, hopefully will have 4 RGB channels for the Ribbons and 4 RGB channels for the floods, with the LOR 16 channel controller running the animations yes i only have 1 CTB16PC controller and 1 CMB24D at this time as i am new to the whole light o rama universe and want to take baby steps into building my display so that the hobby stays fun and doesnt feel like a second job. But i do love the new RGB lights and since i already have a few of the Dumb ribbons on my house for the holidays, and around the deck for accent lighting, i figured i would incorporate them (the ones on the house not the deck) into a LOR display. Please bear with me as i am very green in the area of wiring and soldering but am getting better, as i had to custom fit the RGB ribbons on the house and deck. 

Matt,

 

Here are two (2) resistor calculators that I have used in the past.  They are life savers..........

 

 

http://ledz.com/?p=zz.led.resistor.calculator

 

http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/LEDcalc.html

[Santas Helper]

Tom,  Are you doubling up the wires in the cat5?  Up here, I can't really use cat wire, it becomes brittle in cold weather.  If I set it out on a warm day I can't touch it unless it's warm out.  I've had the out jacket break on me several times.  Anyone else have this issue?  If not, what cat wire are you using?

 

I agree with the above posts, there are some where the green and blue can handle up to 12V.

 

Hey Jim,

No, I'm not doubling the cat5. One color strand per LED and channel terminal. I'm not having issues with the cold effecting my wires and it got to single digits quite a few times.

I'm using the stranded cat5 wire as the solid core does break on me. There are different size stranded cat5 as I found out. The cheaper stuff on ebay is too fine/small of strands to work with putting spade terminals on so I get the thicker more expensive stuff. Sorry I don't recall the size of the cat5 internal wiring.

[Dave H1]

Been getting my Cat 5 from Monoprice

 

http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_id=105&cp_id=10208

[scubado]

Hey Jim,

No, I'm not doubling the cat5. One color strand per LED and channel terminal. I'm not having issues with the cold effecting my wires and it got to single digits quite a few times.

I'm using the stranded cat5 wire as the solid core does break on me. There are different size stranded cat5 as I found out. The cheaper stuff on ebay is too fine/small of strands to work with putting spade terminals on so I get the thicker more expensive stuff. Sorry I don't recall the size of the cat5 internal wiring.

I got mine for free from one of my customers, about a half box solid strand.  It's been handy but not good for outside.

[nookway]

Sorry to reopen this topic again. I recently started learning about light-o-rama and rgb leds. I also recently purchased the CMB24 controller board. I was looking into connecting this with some 10w rgb led flood lights. I have heard good things about Ray Wu's store and his products. I found the following floodlight on his store.

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/10W-RGB-LED-flood-light-DC12V-input-with-4-wire-PWM-driver-inside/701799_2037336497.html

 

I want to find out if I can use these as is without hacking them as some of the other rgb flood lights need. I would prefer to keep the hacking to minimum as I am not so good but my soldering skills. I hope someone can help me with this.

 

Thanks for all your help!

 

- Andy

[Santas Helper]

Welcome aboard Andy (noticing your first post.),

And don't be sorry for waking up this thread. It's a good one for folks who haven't seen it but have the same interests in hacking these.

 

It amazes me the shipping cost Ray Wu charges. I can buy two LED RGB 10W floods with free shipping right here in the U.S. for the same price of Rays shipping charges alone.

And I know, people say he will go down on the price but you can't beat free.

But everyone has their reason I guess.

 

I'm not sure on these what hacking (if any) would be needed.

When it says in the product description-

pwm controller;dmx decoder.etc

3.Unique wireless control,

 

I'm assuming, it saying wireless, there is going to be hacking involved to control it manually (or the CMB24 controller) but can't be certain because it also says dmx decoder.

 

If you haven't already, you might start a new thread to get a bigger audience for more feedback.

[nookway]

Welcome aboard Andy (noticing your first post.),

And don't be sorry for waking up this thread. It's a good one for folks who haven't seen it but have the same interests in hacking these.

 

It amazes me the shipping cost Ray Wu charges. I can buy two LED RGB 10W floods with free shipping right here in the U.S. for the same price of Rays shipping charges alone.

And I know, people say he will go down on the price but you can't beat free.

But everyone has their reason I guess.

 

I'm not sure on these what hacking (if any) would be needed.

When it says in the product description-

pwm controller;dmx decoder.etc

3.Unique wireless control,

 

I'm assuming, it saying wireless, there is going to be hacking involved to control it manually (or the CMB24 controller) but can't be certain because it also says dmx decoder.

 

If you haven't already, you might start a new thread to get a bigger audience for more feedback.

 

Hello Tom,

 

Thanks for the welcome and your feedback. I agree on the cost of shipping if you are getting only a couple of these. Ray Wu has another storefront that reflects more accurate shipping based on increase in quantity. I was looking to get 10 of these and with shipping it would cost around $18 dollars each. If there is no hacking involved I am willing to pay the premium as I am not very comfortable with soldering. The same item at the other store:

 

http://rita.en.alibaba.com/product/60039289462-800384634/10W_RGB_LED_flood_light_DC12V_input_with_4_wire_PWM_driver_inside.html

 

On the flood light itself I thought it would work until I saw the wireless control mentioned. Hence I also have a feeling that it may not work out of the box. I reached out to Ray and this was his response:

 

"this 12v rgb flood light is 4wires, it works in the same way as the below rgb strip and rgb nodes:

can work with LOR 24 channel 12 volt controller

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/LED-strip-5050-SMD-12V-flexible-light-60LED-m-5m-300LED-White-White-warm-Blue-Green/701799_1742526381.html

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/IP68-DC12V-input-12mm-through-hole-LED-channel-letter-RGB-color-100pcs-a-string/701799_522236867.html"

 

I hope he is correct. I have sent him a follow-up about the mention of wireless. Still waiting to hear back from him. In the meantime I will go ahead and start a new thread as you recommend.

 

Thanks again for your help!

 

Cheers,

 

Andy

[Santas Helper]

Well Andy, it sounds like those will work. I'm sure Ray Wu has been hit up many times about LOR compatibility.

It's a shame he can't add on there "LOR controller compatible" to make life easier for him and his customers. You know, take the guess work out.

And at $18 each with shipping is much better.

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Tom

[BlackwolfK9]

Well I hacked my first 10W flood today!  Could not have done it without all the help from Santas Helper!  Thanks so much.

[Santas Helper]

Well I hacked my first 10W flood today!  Could not have done it without all the help from Santas Helper!  Thanks so much.

Eric,

You are quite welcome and glad to be of help. Thank you for asking for it.

Please make sure to show us your results.

[Tim Fischer]

Just for completeness, here is a video of our fountain, made with 4 of the $24-ish Ray Wu DMX floods.  Note that these are NOT intended to be submersible, but I beefed up the waterproofing of them and they've now been through two seasons of summer use with no issues.  Really looks great and I get a lot of complements on the. 

The shown sequence is really basic and is the sort of thing we run most of the time.  I do have a peppier red/white/blue one I use for the 4th of July.  I run it off of an iDMX in standalone mode.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10200985306702113&l=3107867062102766116
 

 

P.S. This makes me miss summer, the pond is totally frozen over now.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Tim Fischer

[Santas Helper]

That's pretty cool Tim.

I would love to have a fountain in my yard. I would do the same thing.

[Santas Helper]

Okay. Not really an update. But posting a few pics of wiring for the flood from another member who requests some pics..

So here are a few pics to share.

One without the circuit card.

One with the circuit card.

The wiring from the cat5 before hooking up to the flood.

Cat5 wires running from the flood to the controller.

The complete setup. For testing only, I didn't use the cat5 coupler for longer runs. Just a direct connect of a short cable from the flood to the controller.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Santas Helper

[JeffF]

Just wanted to thank everyone for the great information here! I've been helping out my buddy who is currently expanding his video game store/retro arcade. He now has a 50' x 50' arcade with RGB reactive paint on the walls and twenty-eight 10w RGB floods to make said paint "dance".

 

Just want to give a HUGE thumbs up to whoever originally mentioned tweaking the power supply down to 11vdc while adding an 18ohm resistor to the red. This worked out perfect for us! THANK YOU! (Before this I was tweaking the intensity of each color... which worked OK but made programming non-RGB colors a bit tougher.)

[Santas Helper]

Jeff,

Very glad to hear it worked out for your buddy.

I think that was me (on post #77) because that's what I do to keep the voltage close to where it "should" be and not "assume" it to be, but glad to hear it worked out.

 

Tom

Edited October 19, 2015 by Santas Helper

[Dave Batzdorf]

Stumbled on this thread.  I would like to replace mu incan spots with LEDs.. I am only running red-green-white.  Will this hack provide me with that or do I need to run the DMX.

[1983ss454]

Stumbled on this thread.  I would like to replace mu incan spots with LEDs.. I am only running red-green-white.  Will this hack provide me with that or do I need to run the DMX.

I run mine off the 24 channel DC board from LOR on my LOR network

[EmmienLightFan]

Stumbled on this thread.  I would like to replace mu incan spots with LEDs.. I am only running red-green-white.  Will this hack provide me with that or do I need to run the DMX.

 

From your post, I guess that you are new to RGB.

 

DMX is a protocol. It is a way for your show player to communicate with controllers. 

 

You can control an RGB device using DMX or Light-O-Rama's own protocol. If you are new and already have a network of LOR controllers, it is probably easiest to use the CMB24D from Light-O-Rama.

 

This thread is about using cheap LED floodlights from Ebay and modifying them to work with an RGB controller, such as LOR's one.

 

If you are new, LOR sell a 10w floodlight at a very reasonable price. I would buy that as you get the amazing support from LOR. I have one in my display and have never had a problem.

[Dave Batzdorf]

Yes, new to the RGB world. Been LOR for 9 years.  Done some reading on it but havent taken the plunge.  I hope to in 2016. I have been looking at the LOR 10w, but I do like to tinker.

[1983ss454]

Yes, new to the RGB world. Been LOR for 9 years.  Done some reading on it but havent taken the plunge.  I hope to in 2016. I have been looking at the LOR 10w, but I do like to tinker.

This was my first year with diy pixels, and I wired up and had my 8 flood lights working in less then a weekend