Rainbow Floods...ASSEMBLED!!

[huskernut]

I am really looking for an enclosure that I can put under water. I have a waterfall in the yard that I would like to place a r-flood inside the water and light it up. Any ideas on this? I am thinking if I can find a nalgene type water bottle with a big enough opening for the board to fit into then I could figure a way to run the wires and seal it.

Greg, if your application is submersible then I am interested but I am not sure you will get enough interest to be worth the order.

Rick

[Ponddude]

I would call the enclosures waterproof but not submersible. Rick, you could create your own form and than purchase your own polyurethane that sets hard. Craft stores usually have that. They would be completely sealed but you would never be able to get to the cabling or board for that matter. :?

[Guest guest]

Ponddude wrote:

I wanted to ask everyone what they are willing to spend on an enclosure from me? I have contacted several different poly-houses and these are not going to be cheap. For the waterproof enclosure, with some sort of clear window and fully customized for the Rainbow Flood, it looks like we are going to be in the neighborhood for $30+ per case.

It is possibly tempting if it included mounting hardware, etc..a complete case kit, as opposed to just the case. Even then, I'm inclined to roll my own for what looks like maybe 1/3 to 1/2. The other side of the coin is..the RF is so fairly priced, we all shouldn't complain too much if the case is a little pricey.

I caution my statement with two caveats:

1. not sure how many RFs I'll be using..I just got my one sample I want to build, but everything I see says I'm in for 2-3 more..

2. have not made the attempt to come up with a case design...so I may be eating my words in a week or so.

[huskernut]

Ponddude wrote:

I would call the enclosures waterproof but not submersible. Rick, you could create your own form and than purchase your own polyurethane that sets hard. Craft stores usually have that. They would be completely sealed but you would never be able to get to the cabling or board for that matter. :?

Thanks Greg, I am not so "crafty" but that sounds like just what I want to do, If it works I wont need to get at the board or cable.

[Tim Fischer]

terrypowerz wrote:

If you wait long enough, Tim F. will figure out how to put it in a generic tupperware box and REALLY save $$

With the nice halogen enclosures under $8, and them being so easy to use, there's no need

[Denny]

Getting ready to direct wire my floods and the more I look at the diagrams, the more confused I am getting myself. Of course, this confusion could be caused by my old age, the desert heat, or a combination thereof. Anway, based on the drawing, is the polarity of the odd number pins positive or negative? Is pin 1 Red + or Blue -?

Attached files

[rstately]

Denny wrote:

Getting ready to direct wire my floods and the more I look at the diagrams, the more confused I am getting myself.  Of course, this confusion could be caused by my old age, the desert heat, or a combination thereof.  Anway, based on the drawing, is the polarity of the odd number pins positive or negative?  Is pin 1 Red + or Blue -?

The odd numbers are +
pins 1 and 2 are red leds,
3 and 4 are green leds,
5 and 6 are unused,
7 and 8 are blue leds.

That is how I did mine and it works,
Hope this helps?

[Denny]

rstately wrote:

Denny wrote:

Getting ready to direct wire my floods and the more I look at the diagrams, the more confused I am getting myself. Of course, this confusion could be caused by my old age, the desert heat, or a combination thereof. Anway, based on the drawing, is the polarity of the odd number pins positive or negative? Is pin 1 Red + or Blue -?

The odd numbers are +
pins 1 and 2 are red leds,
3 and 4 are green leds,
5 and 6 are unused,
7 and 8 are blue leds.

That is how I did mine and it works,
Hope this helps?

Thank you much. Big help for my cooked brain; the more I looked at the diagrams, the more I confused myself.

[Ponddude]

He is correct, all the odd numbers are positive and all the negatives are on the even number pins.

The pins closest to the LEDs are the negative. If you follow the traces, they go directly to the the resistors.

[Randy]

If anyone is interested, Harbor Freight is having the yellow light fixtures on sale for this week, marked down from $12.99 to $8.99.

http://www.harborfreightusa.com/usa/common/displayCoupon.do?hdr=mag&week=2810&campaign=A_Multi&page=2810A_Multi.html&cust=00000000000&keycode=0000

[rstately]

Heres one from Lowes also for 9.98


http://www.lowes.com:80/pd_320778-337-PQS45UT_0_?newSearch=true&catalogId=10051&productId=3182629&Ntt=pqs45ut&N=0&langId=-1&y=0&x=0&Ns=&storeId=10151&Ntk=i_products&ddkey=http:SearchCatalogDisplay

[WayneKremer]

Between Lowes and Harbor Freights halogen housing, anyone know which one will fit double RF's better? Thx!

[rgardner518]

yes, Please help. Which will work better?

[rstately]

I have the Lowes fixture, and 2 rainbow the glass exposed to the outside is
4-1/4" X 6". you could mount them to the glass or hot glue to the inside housing.
I do not have the harbor freight fixture, so I don't know the size.
If you're not short on storage space mount them separately so you have more control aiming them.
Like these from home depot,I have these and they fit 1 RF.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ5zd35/R-202066791/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Or if you want to mount to your house, these come in double and single,
I have these and they fit 1 RF.

http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-Fans-Security-Emergency-Lighting/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbq8sZ5zd35/R-100652891/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

[Randy]

The Lowes enlarged photo looks more sturdy / well made than the HF unit. I was going to drive 20 miles to HF at lunch today and buy their lights, but will go to the closer Lowes and look at these first. It appears that the top handle on the Lowes light is bolted on, so I might choose to not install it and lower the profile of the light.

Not sure if the Lowes light is red or orange from the photo, so I'll check it out at lunch today and report back...

[rstately]

Randy wrote:

The Lowes enlarged photo looks more sturdy / well made than the HF unit.  I was going to drive 20 miles to HF at lunch today and buy their lights, but will go to the closer Lowes and look at these first.  It appears that the top handle on the Lowes light is bolted on, so I might choose to not install it and lower the profile of the light.

Not sure if the Lowes light is red or orange from the photo, so I'll check it out at lunch today and report back...

Yes it's Red, you could spray paint it like John B suggested,
I feed the cat 5 cable through the little black j box on the back. then it fits tight through the tiny hole on the back of the metal housing. I leave a little extra wire inside so if I ever have to replace the RF I can just cut the wire, and solder the new one in.
These fixtures are 6"wide. The RF's are only 2.5" wide so if you wanted to you could mount the RF's angled out from each other to get a wider spread?


Ron

[Randy]

Thanks, Ron. I went to Lowes yesterday and bought 4 of these fixtures for my double RFs. I spent last night disassembling them, removing unneeded parts, drilled out the power hole a bit where it enters the fixture from the junction box, and installed the waterproof cable/RJ45 connection through that hole.

The fixtures are very nice and sturdy. I'm still thinking about the best way to attach the RFs inside. I was thinking I might attach them to a very thin piece of wood and then try to mount the wood to the fixture. More to come as I study that. I see how others have hot glued the RFs to the glass, and I guess that would work. But that gets messy if you ever have to disassemble the fixture because the glass separates from the base and RJ45 waterproof cable is not too long inside the fixture.

Anyways, I'm very happy with the Lowes fixtures and would recommend them...As far as the red color, I'm going to leave them like that since it would probably blend right in with my display. And who needs the extra work of painting 4 fixtures, handles, bases, etc?

Randy

[rstately]

Hey Randy,
I was feeding a regular cat5 cable, now I see you're right, RJ45-ECS wire is thicker.
I have been hot gluing the boards to the housing. We don't get extreme weather here so I think it will hold up. Although last year one night it dropped down to 47!
I had to put on a long sleeve shirt and close some of the windows.
I'm attempting to add a picture, hope it works.


Ron

Attached files

[Ponddude]

Just a little update for everyone!!

The Flood PCBs arrived today, so all the orders got shipped out. The left over quantities have been added to the store and are ready for shipment.

I also received the Spotlight protos this week. They came out great. I have been trying to get outside and take pictures of them in action for everyone, but the weather in NJ has been horrible. Rain doesn't allow me to work with electrical things outside...haha. Here are some pictures of the PCB and the Proto assembled. They are very very comparible to the MR16s, except they are RGB, which makes them even better. I have to finish the numbers, as these use different resistors than the other Rainbow products, but it looks like they will be $11.50, with the Paypal fees. I am going to try and get the final numbers finished up and the outdoor pictures this weekend.

As always, if anyone has any questions, please let me know know!!

[Robsaus]

Im looking at getting 10 of the rainbow floods and using 2 LOR DC controllers. Im going to mount them in one encloser. My question is how big of a 12VDC power supply do I need to run all of the flood lights. :?