LED Floods

[Sean Rizor]

I need a little help with finding and purchasing LED floods for my display. I have searched high and low and I cannot seem to locate LED flood lights that can do what I need for them to do. I need red and green flood lights that are at least 60 watts, are dimmable, and screw into a conventional outdoor flood light holder.



I have found a number of LED floods, but some require special equipment to run them and others don’t dim at all. I really don’t want to waste more money on purchasing more incandescent bulbs if I don’t have to.

[Christopher2113]

Minionsweb.com has severel sizes and colors prices vary but that's where I got my uv led flood lights which work great

[gizmomkr]

Check out these guys - Some of there stuff is dimmable, some is not.

http://www.environmentallights.com/categories/1003_2302/par30-375-in-dia

Keep in mind, the watt rating on a standard bulb doesnt directly translate to a LED becuase led's are much more effecient, using less power. When you pick an LEd, you want to check the lumens rating for an idea of brightness.

[drn1377]

Sean,

I know that you are looking for LEDs that will screw into standard outdoor floodlight fixtures, but I will just fire off an idea to you. I have been doing the same thing for years with different colored flood lights and finally after some serious research and a little work I've come across a much better idea. They are called Rainbow Floods and they area available from christmasonmanor.com. I think they are about 15.00 dollars each and you only need housings for them (lowes for about 10.00 each) and a DC controller from LOR (100.00). The cost for this setup for 5 rainbow floods or more would be cheaper than multiple colors of LED lights that screw into fixtures, at least that was the outcome of my research.

If you are interested in this route I will assist you with all that I can. I will also tell you that the advantages are that these lights are very bright and they can create basically any color in the spectrum. You do have to power them with 12 volts DC, but a simple computer power supply hack will do the trick. Again, I can guide you through that pretty quick too.

I built 5 of the Rainbow Floods, hacked a computer power supply and built the enclosure for the LOR controller/ power supply in one evening (maybe 4 hours) and I am thrilled with the performance.

By all means, if this is not something that would interest you then just disregard this response. I just felt that you sound as though you are right where I was about six months ago and this was definately a permanent fix for my problem!

Doug

[Sean Rizor]

Doug,

I certainly am interested in this concept. Since I don't thoroughly understand how this works I'm going to just present a couple of questions that might sound a bit ignorant. 1) Can you tell the rainbow floods which color you want to use and when? 2) Will I need to purchase more than one DC controller how does it work with LOR?

Thanks for your input as I'm willing to try anything, especially if it will keep my cost low. Most of the LED floods are at least $30 or more each (except they don't do what you want them to). The rainbows are half of that price and if they work with a few modifications then I'm on board.

Thanks again,

Sean

[Surfing4Dough]

http://www.christmasonmanor.com/rainbowfloodlight/rfl.htm (video at bottom)

The rainbow floods are RGB LED floods, so each color (R, G, is attached to a channel on a DC board and therefore can be adjusted up or down, therefore giving you the potential for any color. Since each flood requires 3 DC channels (R, G, , a 16 channel LOR board controls up to 5 flood sets (you can have more than 5 floods by daisy chaining floods to each other, up to the max potential of your board/power supply--I think each flood maximum requirement is 1.06A).

He sells them as kits that you have to solder (cheap) or can buy them assembled. I think you will save in the long run if you were planning on multiple bulbs of multiple colors. Plus they will be very flexible in their abilities. If needing assembled, you might want to move fast since I don't think he (Greg, AKA Ponddude) has a lot left for 2010.

Some good reading here:
http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum79/22328-1.html

[Ponddude]

I just wanted to step in here and clarify one thing before this got too far. You CAN NOT daisy chain more than 2 Rainbow Floods together IF you are going to use cat-5 cable. The current capabilities of the cat-5 cable can not handle more than 2 floods even though the Rainbow Brain and LOR DC controller can handle more than that. Some people have direct wired larger wire to the floods, which allow you to daisy chain more cable together, but using stock cat-5 cable does not allow you to daisy chain more than 2.

[Surfing4Dough]

Ponddude wrote:

I just wanted to step in here and clarify one thing before this got too far. You CAN NOT daisy chain more than 2 Rainbow Floods together IF you are going to use cat-5 cable. The current capabilities of the cat-5 cable can not handle more than 2 floods even though the Rainbow Brain and LOR DC controller can handle more than that. Some people have direct wired larger wire to the floods, which allow you to daisy chain more cable together, but using stock cat-5 cable does not allow you to daisy chain more than 2.

Thanks for clarify that Greg. While on the topic, what about daisy chaining Rainbow spots--what is the limit?

[huskernut]

Ponddude wrote:

I just wanted to step in here and clarify one thing before this got too far. You CAN NOT daisy chain more than 2 Rainbow Floods together IF you are going to use cat-5 cable. The current capabilities of the cat-5 cable can not handle more than 2 floods even though the Rainbow Brain and LOR DC controller can handle more than that. Some people have direct wired larger wire to the floods, which allow you to daisy chain more cable together, but using stock cat-5 cable does not allow you to daisy chain more than 2.

But couldnt you run more than one set of cat 5 from each channel? Parallel if you will rather than in series. The single cat 5 cant handle more than 2 floods but 2 sets of cat 5 from 3 LOR channels can now handle a total of 4 floods. Not at all to be exact because i know each color is not the same current but if one flood is about 1 amp when all are on then each LOR channel can drive 4 amps, a set of 3 channels can drive 12 amps ( of course the bank of 8 is only 20 amps and you would need a heck of a power supply to go on from there )

Anyway back to reality.... a set of 3 channels should be able to drive 4 floods if you split the wires at the controller?

[Ponddude]

To answer both of your questions...

You can daisy chain up to 6 spots and be fine.

Yes, you absolutely could do that. Multiple jacks on the same channels is perfectly expectable. In fact, I recommend that all the time. Just make sure you stay within the current limits of the controller.

[Sean Rizor]

It's a good thing I asked or I would be confused... LOL! In what way does the power supply have anything to do with the number of floods you can daisy chain together? I'm also a bit confused by the issue regarding CAT5 and why it would make a difference. Does anyone have an actual diagram drawing of this?

Sean

[huskernut]

Sean Rizor wrote:

It's a good thing I asked or I would be confused... LOL! In what way does the power supply have anything to do with the number of floods you can daisy chain together? I'm also a bit confused by the issue regarding CAT5 and why it would make a difference. Does anyone have an actual diagram drawing of this?

Sean

I think on some thread a while back it was concluded that a rainbow flood draws about 1 amp when all leds are on. The more floods you add to the controller, the more amps you could be drawing (highest when all leds are on (White)).

In my case for one application i am using a laptop power supply, it is rated at 4 amps so allowing a little for the controller itself and not wanting to be at the spec limit, I wouldnt want to have more than 3 floods on this controller, If I want more I have to use a bigger power supply.

I dont have a picture but I am sure the issue with the cat 5 is that the flood can draw an amp, 2 floods 2 amps and I assume Greg has figured out that each wire in a cat 5 can only handle so much before there is an issue. This is using cat 5 as the power wire for the flood and not talking about cat 5 to provide the signal to the controller.

Rick

[Ponddude]

You need to think of this just like you would think of a standard AC system. For instance, you usually are limited to 15 amps per outlet. If you try to hook up 16 amps worth of lights to an outlet that can only handle 15 amps, the breaker will trip. Same thing happens with DC lighting. You need a power supply (think of it as the breaker) and that power supply has a limit of how much power it can put out. If you go over that limit, the power supply will not supply power anymore and trip.

It really is not any different than any other lighting system. Don't be afraid of it because DC lighting will really open you up to a whole new world of lighting.