DIY, 5mm LED moonlights
Posted 08-07-2009 at 05:53 PM by hpglow
First of all most of this will be carried over from some posts I made about six months agao on my local reef clubs forum but all this can be applied to dart fanatics that want to add moon lighting to their cages. Chances are you will not want more than a couple LEDs per enclosure but those of you that have multiple enclosures in a close proximity can use the same power source for many LEDs.
Here is what you will need to get your project started.
1. An old cell phone charger.
2. Some 5mm LEDs.
3. Some 14 or 18 AWG wire.*
4. Some super glue or silicone adhesive.
5. A strip of 1/8" thick acrylic or aluminum.**
6. Wire Connectors. Push-in or crimp on work best. Wire-nuts work but are a PITA. Or good soldering skills.
7. Possibly some resistors.
*Cat 5, lamp cord, landscaping cable all work. It will only be carrying around 5 to 12V.
**Something that won't corrode in a damp environment. That you can mount your LEDs to.
Tools you will need.
1. Drill
2. 11/64ths drill bit. (I will correct if this is wrong but I think this is the closest size I found to a 5mm led.)
3. Wire Strippers.
4. Razor Knife.
Here is a cell charger...
Two things to note here are the output voltage and the current it is limited to. This particular charger is 5V / 550mA. This will determine the resistors that need to be used and the maximum amount of LEDs that can be powered. LEDs require that the current going through them be limited and are rated by the maximum amount of current they can safely carry before they burn up. Most 5mm LEDs are rated at 20mA. So by looking at this charger and it's 550mA rating we can see that 550/20 = ~27 LEDs can be lit with this adapter. Now being that a cell charger is a current limiting device placing 28 LEDs on it will not cause it any harm it will just cause the emitters to be lit more dim.
Ok enough talk on chargers, now decide how many LEDs you want to light and go to a website with a calculator on it such as this one...http://www.led-calculator.com/?betri...4&led_strom=20
This will tell you when you enter your supply voltage and number of LEDs what your resistor value should be. When purchasing resistors try and always over rate the wattage portion. For example if the calculator recomends 1/8th Watt go ahead and purchase 1/4 or 1/3 this value just determines the amount of abuse the resistor can take.
For our hypothetical scenario the calculator has told us we need an 82 Ohm resistor with a minimum of 1/8th Watt rating. Time to hunt something close down. No need to get exact.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Product...uKuTdu9hjL4%3d
Here is a nice 82 Ohm 1/4W resistor. $0.06 its darn cheap as well.
While at Mouser I may as well order some LEDs. Blues, Purples, and Pinks tend to look the most natural. On rare occasion you can also find black but not often. You want to start your search here...
http://www.mouser.com/search/Refine.aspx?N=254249
Limit your search paramiters to "through hole" and then select colors you wish to look for.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Product...h26DRu2oCQM%3dThis is a blue with a nice viewing angle.
LEDs have polarity. That is the current can only flow one direction through them and most of the time wiring them backwards does nothing but if enough voltage is applied in reverse backwards it can ruin them. One leg on every emitter is shorter than the other. That leg is your negative. While wiring your moonlights make sure that you wire all of them the same way so that you can simply swap the power supply polarity if the LEDs are installed backwards.
This is a set of moonlights I made over a year agao. This December these lights have been burning for 2 years solid, they have never been shut off. There are three colors there. These were for a fish tank, your viv will require much fewer LEDs.
I will continue with a breif instructional on putting the assembly togather in my next post.
Here is what you will need to get your project started.
1. An old cell phone charger.
2. Some 5mm LEDs.
3. Some 14 or 18 AWG wire.*
4. Some super glue or silicone adhesive.
5. A strip of 1/8" thick acrylic or aluminum.**
6. Wire Connectors. Push-in or crimp on work best. Wire-nuts work but are a PITA. Or good soldering skills.
7. Possibly some resistors.
*Cat 5, lamp cord, landscaping cable all work. It will only be carrying around 5 to 12V.
**Something that won't corrode in a damp environment. That you can mount your LEDs to.
Tools you will need.
1. Drill
2. 11/64ths drill bit. (I will correct if this is wrong but I think this is the closest size I found to a 5mm led.)
3. Wire Strippers.
4. Razor Knife.
Here is a cell charger...
Two things to note here are the output voltage and the current it is limited to. This particular charger is 5V / 550mA. This will determine the resistors that need to be used and the maximum amount of LEDs that can be powered. LEDs require that the current going through them be limited and are rated by the maximum amount of current they can safely carry before they burn up. Most 5mm LEDs are rated at 20mA. So by looking at this charger and it's 550mA rating we can see that 550/20 = ~27 LEDs can be lit with this adapter. Now being that a cell charger is a current limiting device placing 28 LEDs on it will not cause it any harm it will just cause the emitters to be lit more dim.
Ok enough talk on chargers, now decide how many LEDs you want to light and go to a website with a calculator on it such as this one...http://www.led-calculator.com/?betri...4&led_strom=20
This will tell you when you enter your supply voltage and number of LEDs what your resistor value should be. When purchasing resistors try and always over rate the wattage portion. For example if the calculator recomends 1/8th Watt go ahead and purchase 1/4 or 1/3 this value just determines the amount of abuse the resistor can take.
For our hypothetical scenario the calculator has told us we need an 82 Ohm resistor with a minimum of 1/8th Watt rating. Time to hunt something close down. No need to get exact.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Product...uKuTdu9hjL4%3d
Here is a nice 82 Ohm 1/4W resistor. $0.06 its darn cheap as well.
While at Mouser I may as well order some LEDs. Blues, Purples, and Pinks tend to look the most natural. On rare occasion you can also find black but not often. You want to start your search here...
http://www.mouser.com/search/Refine.aspx?N=254249
Limit your search paramiters to "through hole" and then select colors you wish to look for.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Product...h26DRu2oCQM%3dThis is a blue with a nice viewing angle.
LEDs have polarity. That is the current can only flow one direction through them and most of the time wiring them backwards does nothing but if enough voltage is applied in reverse backwards it can ruin them. One leg on every emitter is shorter than the other. That leg is your negative. While wiring your moonlights make sure that you wire all of them the same way so that you can simply swap the power supply polarity if the LEDs are installed backwards.
This is a set of moonlights I made over a year agao. This December these lights have been burning for 2 years solid, they have never been shut off. There are three colors there. These were for a fish tank, your viv will require much fewer LEDs. I will continue with a breif instructional on putting the assembly togather in my next post.
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