My MR-16 How-To: Part 1

[Tim Fischer]

Hi all,

I've been promising a few people a "how-to" on how I'm doing my MR-16 LED spot holders/controller.

As of today, I've finished (I hope) the 4 banks of R/G/B spots I will be using for this season. I have not yet finished the controller.

But to get things moving, I quickly wrote up a How-To and put it out on my website.

Here's an excerpt:

My main cost-saving trick was twofold: Firstly, I used PVC pipe for the majority of the body of the lampholders. Many of the other options used some sort of PVC fitting instead, which tends to cost $1.50-$3 for the correct sizes. On the other hand, PVC DWV pipe is dirt cheap. I paid $3.50 for enough PVC to do about 48 fixtures. Secondly, for the bottom of the fixtures, I discovered what's called a "rough-in cap" or "test cap", and instead of $1.50 for a pressure-capable schedule-40 fitting, these cost 25 cents each (see below) and seem to work beautifully.

Anyway, Part 1 is now live: Love, Hate it, or Ignore it :
http://www.plymouthlights.com/mr16howto.htm

Part 2 will be about the controller box, and how it interfaces with the light banks. It will be written as soon as I finish that project

-Tim

[Tim Fischer]

Part two of my MR-16 Wash Fixtures How-To is now available on my website. This part deals with how I created the enclosure containing the power supply and LOR DC board.

Here's the link:
http://www.plymouthlights.com/mr16howto2.htm

In particular, I've gotten some questions in other threads here about my power supply-- this how-to will hopefully explain that.

-Tim