Tim Fischer Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Bill Hoffman wrote: To me it still goes back to how much bang I'm going to get for my buck, and for right now, it's the Rainbow Flood. Plus for a double RF and the price tag of $30 (floods only), it's going to be hard to beat the color for the price of the RF.I wasn't hoping to confuse folks either. And I totally agree with your statement - it's all about bang for the buck. I guess I was wondering if a "version 2" of the boards would benefit from having 2x the red (and perhaps blue) LED's, even at the expense of needing a larger enclosure (and of course a higher price ticket). Making a "double board" doesn't quite do it, because then you'd have double the green, which still makes the colors unbalanced...Just the "engineer" side of me taking over Not trying to disparage anybody's product or anything... I've only personally seen/used the products I reviewed in my 'review' above (as well as a couple of professional DJ fixtures I had loaned to me).I'm looking forward to trying out the V-Flood as well, once Mouser gets their act together and makes it so I can order the parts to build... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Hoffman Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Tim Fischer wrote: Bill Hoffman wrote: To me it still goes back to how much bang I'm going to get for my buck, and for right now, it's the Rainbow Flood. Plus for a double RF and the price tag of $30 (floods only), it's going to be hard to beat the color for the price of the RF.I wasn't hoping to confuse folks either. And I totally agree with your statement - it's all about bang for the buck. I guess I was wondering if a "version 2" of the boards would benefit from having 2x the red (and perhaps blue) LED's, even at the expense of needing a larger enclosure (and of course a higher price ticket). Making a "double board" doesn't quite do it, because then you'd have double the green, which still makes the colors unbalanced...Just the "engineer" side of me taking over Not trying to disparage anybody's product or anything... I've only personally seen/used the products I reviewed in my 'review' above (as well as a couple of professional DJ fixtures I had loaned to me).I'm looking forward to trying out the V-Flood as well, once Mouser gets their act together and makes it so I can order the parts to build...Tim, I understand now what you are getting at. Hopefully future designs will take the individual color restraints into consideration. Even the bigger boards are having problems with this, though. At Light Up Ohio I had a Portaflood with I'm thinking 152 leds, I can't remember exactly right this moment, but it was a lot. With all of those leds, it still didn't compare with the single Rainbow flood. A guy that was there told me that he was not happy with the Red. So what he did was designed another PCB to mount on top of the portaflood fixture with all red leds in it, and he said he put whites in where the Red's used to be. He said about the only time that the Red is dominant is when you go RGB to get clear. He said you can see the Red glow around the clear light. I didn't really notice this before, until he pointed it out, and he was right. Anyway, I can't wait to see what you think about the v-flood, I haven't ordered one of those yet.Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted June 30, 2010 Author Share Posted June 30, 2010 If I were to take a second and step away as the "seller" and put on my "professor" hat I could explain why red LEDs will ALWAYS be not as bright.First off it is important to understand how an LED works. Without getting into the 300 level course, I will explain in the 100 level how they work. To begin, there is an anvil and a post within the LED. On top of the anvil is a semiconductor with a reflective cavity within that conductor. Surrounding those components are various different chemical materials, most of them found in the earth. When the electricity is passed from the anvil to the post, the photons that are released react with those materials. That energy and reactivity is what creates the light. There is also a difference in the distance between the anvil and post, which will cause more or less protons to be released. LEDs have different colors depending on the materials that are within the LED itself. Oddly enough, the first LED that was created was actually a red LED, which I believe was in the early 60's. (don't quote me on that one) So, the reason why red LEDs are not as bright is simply because of the protons reaction with the chemical materials within the LED itself.Now that class is over, back to less boring things...There are currently no plans to redo design the Rainbow Floods this year. Next year they may get a redesign, but I do not plan on adding more red LEDs this year. It simply wouldn't be fair to all of those who purchased lights this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Hoffman Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Ponddude wrote: There are currently no plans to redo design the Rainbow Floods this year. Next year they may get a redesign, but I do not plan on adding more red LEDs this year. It simply wouldn't be fair to all of those who purchased lights this year.I'm good with the double Rainbow, it is a very bright rich Red and a beautiful Blue, I'm not sure if it can get any better than that. But then again, that's just me. :cool:Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Ponddude wrote: There are currently no plans to redo design the Rainbow Floods this year. Next year they may get a redesign, but I do not plan on adding more red LEDs this year. It simply wouldn't be fair to all of those who purchased lights this year.Very understandable and I didn't expect it to be redesigned so soon They're great floods as-is, and I'm happy with them! I just couldn't resist putting on my engineer's hat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Lambert Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Tim Fischer wrote: I'm looking forward to trying out the V-Flood as well, once Mouser gets their act together and makes it so I can order the parts to build...Tim is there a problem with Mouser? I was going to order some resistor's from them (for snubbers) Never using them before I'm always a little weary. Some clarification would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rstately Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Ponddude wrote:If I were to take a second and step away as the "seller" and put on my "professor" hat I could explain why red LEDs will ALWAYS be not as bright.I agree, put you're "seller" hat back on and finish the rainbow spots, I just ordered 4 dc cards and can't wait to play with the spots. after putting together all the rainbow floods, I'm soldering faster that a thirteen year old chinese boy!:shock:Thanks Greg, I'm Happy with all your stuff!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Darryl Lambert wrote: Tim Fischer wrote: I'm looking forward to trying out the V-Flood as well, once Mouser gets their act together and makes it so I can order the parts to build...Tim is there a problem with Mouser? I was going to order some resistor's from them (for snubbers) Never using them before I'm always a little weary. Some clarification would be appreciated.Not a problem with Mouser per se, just the original BOM for the V-Drive had a number of items out of stock, one of them not coming in until late August. I think William found substitutions for most of them, and the rest were supposed to be in stock in the next week or two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Lambert Posted July 1, 2010 Share Posted July 1, 2010 Thanks TimJust wanted to make sure before I order Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted July 1, 2010 Author Share Posted July 1, 2010 You guys buy these Rainbow Floods like they are candy!! I got an order of 200 of them on Monday and today, after tomorrows shipments, there are 4 left!!Anyway, a new order has been placed and will be here ASAP. As always, you can still order the floods, but they will not ship until they are all in stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WayneKremer Posted July 1, 2010 Share Posted July 1, 2010 I got my 10! Just hope I can get them all soldered easily. Even bought a new soldering iron for these...Wayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrypowerz Posted July 1, 2010 Share Posted July 1, 2010 Bill Hoffman wrote: Ponddude wrote: There are currently no plans to redo design the Rainbow Floods this year. Next year they may get a redesign, but I do not plan on adding more red LEDs this year. It simply wouldn't be fair to all of those who purchased lights this year.I'm good with the double Rainbow, it is a very bright rich Red and a beautiful Blue, I'm not sure if it can get any better than that. But then again, that's just me. :cool:BillBill,With your setup on the double, did you notice the spread or coverage increasing at all with both turned on?I guess it all depends on how well you get the aim or alignment of both to be on top of each other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Hoffman Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 terrypowerz wrote: Bill Hoffman wrote: Ponddude wrote: There are currently no plans to redo design the Rainbow Floods this year. Next year they may get a redesign, but I do not plan on adding more red LEDs this year. It simply wouldn't be fair to all of those who purchased lights this year.I'm good with the double Rainbow, it is a very bright rich Red and a beautiful Blue, I'm not sure if it can get any better than that. But then again, that's just me. :cool:BillBill,With your setup on the double, did you notice the spread or coverage increasing at all with both turned on?I guess it all depends on how well you get the aim or alignment of both to be on top of each other?Terry, The spread wasn't really affected that much, the single and the double both spread out well. Probably because the 2 boards are vertically mounted in the enclosure, it is not that much wider. Of course, there is some spread difference between the 2, but not what I would call major. The color is where you really notice the difference, side by side, but there again it's double the leds. I will bring them both, along with the MM and the Portaflood to ICE. Only "8 DAYS" and counting.Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wbottomley Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 WayneKremer wrote:I got my 10! Just hope I can get them all soldered easily. Even bought a new soldering iron for these...WayneWayne, they're not bad at all.After I got in the groove, it went pretty easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 So, I received some Rainbow flood kits in the mail and built the first one today. After testing it, all LEDs light and I'm happy about that.But I have a question about the performance of the RF when dimming.When I start with my DC power supply at 0 volts and ramp it up on all colors at once, the Red LEDs turn on at 5volts. The other two colors are not lit all the way up to 7.5 volts. By the time Green and Blue start to come on at 7.5 volts, Red is pretty bright. As I ramp it up to 12 volts, all three colors are plenty bright and look good.But as I ramp it down, again I lose Blue and Green at about 7.5 volts with Red still pretty bright. Then Red dims down and goes out at 5 volts...Is this what other people are seeing? This behavior is pretty different from my RWRs, which light up about 2.5 volts sooner, and while red does come on first, the other colors are right behind it within a few 10ths of a volt...I'm thinking that an all channel fade up on the RF will look red-centric until the voltage gets high enough for the other lights...Anyone else done any testing?Thanks, Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edvas69 Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 Ive made some rainbow floods and put them into 150 watt flood casing with a perfect fitHow to do info and photos herehttp://forums.auschristmaslighting.com/index.php/topic,187.0.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted July 3, 2010 Author Share Posted July 3, 2010 Randy,I think you are having issues with either your controller or your floods. I just did a little testing and got the voltage results below: Red Green Blue1% 4.0 6.0 6.515% 5.0 6.8 7.220% 5.4 7.1 7.525% 5.8 7.4 7.935% 6.5 7.9 8.250% 7.5 8.7 8.965% 8.6 9.4 9.670% 8.4 9.7 9.785% 9.6 10.4 10.5100% 11.8 11.8 11.8(The % is from the slider on the DMX console and all voltages are in DC voltage)The difference between the voltages is simply because each light uses different voltages to light. If you were really to go in and do the math (I am horrible at math) the voltage differences between each one will most like be the forward voltage of the LED. Now because these lights are controlled directly through the DC voltage, you should be getting extremely smooth fades. You shouldn't notice any difference at all between each other and the fades are so smooth that there is very little, if any, overlap or color saturation from any of the 3 colors.What are you using to control these lights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 I'm using a bench DC power supply with digital readouts for voltage and current and all 3 channels are connected to "+" and "-" concurrently.I'm doing the "fade" manually with the voltage pot on the power supply. There's nothing wrong with the fade itself, it is plenty smooth. It's just that when I fade up from zero to 12 volts, I see red first from 5 volts to 7.5 volts and then the other colors come on.So maybe my next step will be to connect them to a controller and give them some "Real-world" testing...Thanks for your information...Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 I'll have four of the RF kits coming soon, it's good I get to read how everyone is doing on assembly and mounting, something i hadnt thot about yet, the portable worklight housings from Mouser look like a very good idea.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Adams Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 edvas69 wrote: Ive made some rainbow floods and put them into 150 watt flood casing with a perfect fitHow to do info and photos herehttp://forums.auschristmaslighting.com/index.php/topic,187.0.htmlCould you post it here also as I can't see the pictures on that site because I am not a member. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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