Finished my signature project

[scubado]

I have finally finished my flowerbeds after much trial and error. I have two of these that run together in parallel. This one has 670 leds, the other one is elongated and has 860 leds. This year only the white is segmented, next year all colors will be segmented.

Attached files

[scubado]

Here is a pic of the lighttubes that I made. The clear tubes are cover tubes for florescent lights. The mounting media is plastic plumber strapping with holes drilled every 1/2" and then marked with color markers. When soldering up the lights, mount the strip to a stiff wire rod to keep it straight and steady. I will be making more of these tubes over the winter months for next years projects.

Attached files

[scubado]

Here is the YouTube link to see it in action:

[huskernut]

Really sweet!! Nice job.

So... do tell.....

What LEDs did you use? whats the voltage and the resistor size? How much does each segment draw?

I just NEED to know :shock:


If you dont mind sharing, I could see a lot of landscaping applications for this.

Rick

[scubado]

The led's are 5mm 10-17,000mcd depending on which color. The white, green and blue use a 470ohm resistor and the red uses 510ohm. The led's were purchased on Ebay, some vendors, the resistors come free. The tubes are running on 12V. The nice thing about it is, if one burns out, it's only that one that goes out, and very easy to replace. It does take time to make one and hard on the fingers inserting the leds into the strip.

[jimswinder]

Nice looking flowerbed too!!!

[Greg]

Very cool Idea! Looks great

[Cray Augsburg]

That is so cool! Love the idea and the implementation. Hat's off to you!

[rwertz]

Great idea, well done.

[Guest guest]

Very nice! Great even for year round use! Makes for some really nice landscape and mood lighting too! Fantastic job on the LED system for your flower beds. I can see a lot of potential for your project!

[shfr26]

I read somewhere that the lights you used will not work in Wisconsin's cold weather. Being the nice guy that I am, just take it all apart and sent it to me in Florida. The specs that I looked stated they will work here just fine. Very nice job! First year people are not suppose to come up with things that look that great, it makes the rest of us look bad. Only kidding of course, keep up the good work.

[Guest guest]

Very cool..

But you still have to weed the flower beds, correct?

Add that feature, and I'll take 6...

[scubado]

shfr26 wrote:

I read somewhere that the lights you used will not work in Wisconsin's cold weather. Being the nice guy that I am, just take it all apart and sent it to me in Florida. The specs that I looked stated they will work here just fine. Very nice job! First year people are not suppose to come up with things that look that great, it makes the rest of us look bad. Only kidding of course, keep up the good work.

Nice try! It would really be cool to install CCR's, but it would take five of them to do the two flowerbeds. The wife would have to put me out of her misery!

One of my next projects is to modify some solar powered landscape lights.

[Austen]

Very creative. I like it.

[TitusCarnathan]

the cosmic color tube



That is a very good Idea

[TitusCarnathan]

shfr26 wrote:

I read somewhere that the lights you used will not work in Wisconsin's cold weather. Being the nice guy that I am, just take it all apart and sent it to me in Florida. The specs that I looked stated they will work here just fine. Very nice job! First year people are not suppose to come up with things that look that great, it makes the rest of us look bad. Only kidding of course, keep up the good work.

shfr26 is kidding he cant use the lights in flordia either the heat and the oranges growing on the trees cause some kind of weird science effect on the lights but you can send the to pennsylvaina our weather doesn't hurt lights


are these expensive to make

[scubado]

T110431 wrote:

shfr26 wrote:

I read somewhere that the lights you used will not work in Wisconsin's cold weather. Being the nice guy that I am, just take it all apart and sent it to me in Florida. The specs that I looked stated they will work here just fine. Very nice job! First year people are not suppose to come up with things that look that great, it makes the rest of us look bad. Only kidding of course, keep up the good work.

shfr26 is kidding he cant use the lights in flordia either the heat and the oranges growing on the trees cause some kind of weird science effect on the lights but you can send the to pennsylvaina our weather doesn't hurt lights


are these expensive to make

The lights will work just fine here in Wisconsin, thank you for your concern

About $160 for 2000 led's with free resistors, 500 for each color WRGB. I made 16 tubes, 6) 4' and 2) 7' tubes. The tubes are florescent tube covers, buy the thinner 8'ers and cut them in half. They are time consuming to make, makes a great indoor winter project, not much fun when it's nice outside. I did run into a short in one of my tubes and cooked a mosfet, but Dan took of me in quick time. Thanks Dan!