# LED halogen floodlight replacement



## Amonra (Dec 29, 2005)

I am currently using 4pcs. of 500W halogen flood lights to light up the sign and interior of our showroom during the night and i have just realised that these lights cost me about 60 $ a month to run which is a bit too much. (electricity costs 0.16$ per KWh here and these bulbs run for 6 hours a day)

i could use 300W or 150W halogen bulbs to bring down the running costs but still they are fragile and unreliable, their colour is ugly and still cost a bit much to run.

So i was thinking of using LED power in this application to reduce running costs and get a nicer more noticable white light color.

preferably i will not use luxeons due to the thermal issues, besides, 5mm LED's seem to be more efficient these days. also because i do not need throw but flood.

i am therefore thinking of using 400pcs. of 5mm wide angle LED's per unit therefore having a total of approx 2,800 lumens per unit ( using the current approximation of 7 Lumens per latest 5mm LED ). 
i do not know how many lumens a 500W halogen flood light emits but 2,800 lumens seem like plenty for my use.

now if i run them in a series-parallel configuration @ 12 Volts and 30 mA each, that would be approx 50W per unit and cost me approx 6 $ a month for all 4 units. correct me if i'm wrong.

so my question is: where do i buy 1600 pcs. ( maybe even more ) of the latest, brightest, whitest ( not yellowish or bluish ), wide angle ( 80 - 100 deg. ) 5mm LED's ?

EDIT: they must be very well priced too... and have agood lumen maintenance.

Thanks


----------



## cheapo (Dec 29, 2005)

i would probably get them from China... they have them cheap.

-David


----------



## 3rd_shift (Dec 29, 2005)

Nichia may be your best bet for T5 leds.
The new cs models are puttng out around 60-70 lumens per watt.
Prices have been around 55 cents per piece in quantities of 100 thus far.
Should be less in higher quantities.
:thinking: I used to know the link to thier website on ordering these....
Just do a google search for Nichia leds.

With this many leds, heat will still be the enemy though.

Another possibility may be in using Compact flourescent, or Metal Halide HID lighting for something like that.
Compact flourescent is usually around 60-70 lumens per watt and still getting better.
HID metal halides are around 100+ lumens per watt for good fixtures when they are new.
Your halogens are only around 15-20 lumens per watt.

Full sized flourescents (F40's F96's etc.. are nearing 100 lumens per watt and often stay nearly that efficeint from beginning to end of thier service lives.
They are often cheaper too if not exposed to extreme climate, or weather conditions.


----------



## 3rd_shift (Dec 29, 2005)

cheapo said:


> i would probably get them from China... they have them cheap.
> 
> -David



Many of the chinese leds have not been lasting very long though.
They are supposed to last 100,000 hours, but they just don't for some reason.
Even 1000 hours is proving elusive for most of the Chinese leds.
Now, as for Luxeon3 leds, that's another story.
These are holding up much better.
These also come in 170 degree wide angle to start with.
They are also a lot easier and less tedious to mount to a large aluminum block, and then wire up thanks to thier large soldering star pads.
You will want stars, not emitters, for ease of mounting them all.
They can be Arctic Alumina glued and/or screwed on to a finned aluminum block.
Many nightclubs are going the Luxeon3 route for colored lighting lately too.


----------



## LumenHound (Dec 29, 2005)

Running some of the low cost 5mm leds at 30 milliamps may drastically reduce their lifespan. Stick with leds from top quality manufacturers if you decide to go down this road.

How long do you estimate it will take to solder all 1600 leds onto the 4 circuit boards?


----------



## enLIGHTenment (Dec 30, 2005)

Amonra said:


> i do not know how many lumens a 500W halogen flood light emits but 2,800 lumens seem like plenty for my use.



Depending on bulb type, one 500W halogen can put out upwards of 8000 to 11000 lumens.

Upgrading the entire fixture would require on the order of 5000 LEDs. HID is much more cost effective for this level of output.


----------



## pr5owner (Dec 30, 2005)

LumenHound said:


> How long do you estimate it will take to solder all 1600 leds onto the 4 circuit boards?



5 minutes


----------



## photo2000a (Dec 30, 2005)

although i don't have my office magazines with me, their are a few led companies that make led boards for sign lighting and have normal color ballance

they are square board like modules and ready to go quite brite and nice

i just can't think of the name of them but certian it's in a few of my magazines i'll post it here if i dig it up but try to goggle a few of the big led firms in mean time


----------



## Amonra (Dec 31, 2005)

Cheapo: yep but it seems they would not survive for very long.

3rd shift: i do have some nichia CS leds but they are a bit too yellow for my liking and the beam is too narrow. as for the luxeons i would need a huge heatsink for 50 lux1 or 20 lux 3. it is true about the easier mounting though, not to mention the much less soldering to do.

lumenhound: i am a very patient man

enlightenment: that is true but the 500w halogens i currently have are already producing much more light than needed. i guess that about 2000 - 3000 lumens of white light will be enough for the required application.

pr5owner: i'd be happy to send you all the LED's and boards for you to solder for me 

photo200a: it would be great if you could find these as it would save me a lot of soldering.

In the meantime i have soldered 98 LOV 10mm 80,000mcd led's ( the only ones i have at the moment )to a board to test what kind of output i would get, and i must say that it is quite impressive although yellowish in color and with a narrow beam angle they light up a small room nicely. i am currently sanding them with fine sandpaper to diffuse the beam and get a smoother flood. driven at 20mA they produce no heat. they do get a bit warm when driven at 30mA though, so i will stick to 20mA as heat is not desired with 400 tightly packed led's.

i would like to go ahead with LED and not HID or flourescent, mainly for an easthetic reason and that wow factor. an array of hundreds of led's is more eye catching and uncommon ( at least locally ) than flourescent tubes or HID. 

i have been weighing my options and came up with these results :

40pcs. RX0H lux1 @ 350mA - 45W - 2000 LUM
18pcs. UX1K lux3 @ 700mA - 47W - 1980 LUM
11pcs. WWOT lux5 @ 700mA - 53W - 2090 LUM
17pcs. Lamina BL-4000 @ 700mA - 90.1W - 2040LUM
19pcs. Lamina BL-2000 @ 420mA- 89.3W - 2052LUM
4pcs. Lamina BL-3000 @ 2.3A- 104W - 2268LUM
400pcs. peak snow led/nichia CS @ 20mA - 25W/27W - 2000LUM

The above calculations have been made using specs from manufacturer datasheets and/or tests carried out by CPF members.

It is therefore quite obvious that the snow/nichia led's are the most efficient of all of the above which is why i would prefer to use them, preferably the snow due to the whiter color. i am aware that snow led's have a short lifetime @30mA but no tests have been made @20mA so im hoping they will live longer. the only problem would be the narrow beam angle.

Other options might be spider LED's which would make for easier soldering, better heat dissipation and generally have wide beam angles but i could not find much data on them and white ones do not seem to be very common.

Any other suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. thanks.


----------



## Ken_McE (Dec 31, 2005)

5 mm LED Track Lighting:

I have some experience building strips of 5 mm LED lights. Not hundreds of LEDs, but dozens anyhow. I chose 5mm so as to avoid heat issues. Something I have found useful is to get a strip of aluminum channel ("U" shaped cross section) and a length of flexible clear plastic tubing that fits snugly into the track. The track I mount anyway I like. When the LEDs are off it just looks like a decorative trim strip, people don't really seem to see it. I like to make it look like part of the molding on the wall.

I build the light into the tube and press fit it into the track when it is ready. Now I can switch out tubes If I have a problem or if I build a better one later. The aluminum track gives them good mechanical protection and a clean enclosure. Because I like a small track, one half inch by one half inch, I have been experimenting with trimming the ends off the 5 mm's so they don't stick out into view.

For the wiring I have a a red and a black wire that run the full length 
of the tube and stick out at either end. The LEDs tap into the wires as they need, but don't break the wire. Now you can power it from either end, or chain them at either end, and if LEDs die the circuit is not affected. If you want series-parallel you add a third wire and cut and use it as needed in the tube.



Not to make your life complicated...

but have you considered mixing in some panels of controllable RGB LEDs so you can go with various colors for your displays?


>i do not know how many lumens a 500W halogen flood light 
>emits but 2,800 lumens seem like plenty for my use.


According to this site:

http://www.electriciansupplies.com/...1_General_Purpose_>=_150_Watt_Light_Bulbs.htm

they have a 150 watt bulb that produces 2780 lumens. Before you solder all those little devils, why not try a 150 watt bulb and see if its enough light?


----------



## photo2000a (Dec 31, 2005)

Amonra said:


> C
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Amonra (Dec 31, 2005)

Ken_McE said:


> 5 mm LED Track Lighting:
> 
> According to this site:
> 
> ...



they have up to 3930 LUM @ 200W but have you seen the life time only 750 hours. besides that's only 20LUM/W a lux1 can do double that!


----------



## LumenHound (Jan 1, 2006)

At a drive level of 20 ma per led, your array of 98 LOV 80K 10mm leds may only have a useful life of between 1000-2000 hours before they decline to 50% output.

Take a look at the lumen maintenance graphs of various leds from this thread.


----------



## Amonra (Jan 1, 2006)

LumenHound said:


> At a drive level of 20 ma per led, your array of 98 LOV 80K 10mm leds may only have a useful life of between 1000-2000 hours before they decline to 50% output.
> 
> Take a look at the lumen maintenance graphs of various leds from this thread.



well actually the graph for the LOV is @30mA which would be the max rating for this LED therefore it is being overdriven @30mA. but @20mA it would be a much more 'comfortable' drive level for the LED thus im pretty confident it would last at least 5000 hours.


----------



## Ken_McE (Jan 1, 2006)

Amonra said:


> they have up to 3930 LUM @ 200W but have you seen the life time only 750 hours. besides that's only 20LUM/W a lux1 can do double that!



I see you have survived New Years. Congratulations! :buddies: 

I did not mean to suggest that you should use pokey old incan. bulbs to light the shop. I meant to suggest that you check and see with your own eyes that the proposed new LED setup will be bright enough to satisfy your needs. It would suck mightily to buy parts, solder thousands of connections, find a nice current regulated power power supply, spend a weekend installing all the bits and pieces, and *then* find that you had built a really expensive nightlight... 

I am hoping that as you will post notes and pics on the build as you go. I quite admire the whole project and would be interested to see how you address all the decisions involved. 


Regarding LED boards:

The Quickar Electronics people sell boards and spider LEDs for making your own LED strips: http://www.quickar.com/lenses.php?session= (scroll to bottom of page.) They are out of Colorado, USA and Mark the owner is a listmember. 

The eBay vendor lck-led sells a variety of preassembled LED strips: http://cgi.ebay.com/7-Thin-LED-Stri...ryZ66952QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I have some of his strips mounted on my car. He is erratic about questions but ships as advertised.

If you are interested I may be able to put you in touch with a sign shop that sold me some preassembled white six inch, six spider LED modules that come set up for 12 V DC. They have a high, bluish-white color temperature. They cost me around $ 4.25 per modules (Euro 3.6). and came with mounting brackets and board-to-board connectors.


----------



## Amonra (Jan 2, 2006)

im pretty confident that if i use 400 of the latest 5mm led's i'd get a pretty decent amount of light. an exmaple of this would be this : https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/101816 and that is only 100led's and most probably not the best led's availble. as i said before i have soldered 100 leds on a board as a test and im pretty happy with the results.

the only problem i have is finding nichia CS or peak snow 29 led's with a wide angle of about 60 - 70 deg. i could otherwise use these https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/94691 though im not so sure they would actually widen the beam. 

the ideal led im looking for would be a nichia CS with the advantage of high output and long lifetime/overdrivability but with the color/beam quality of the peak snow 29 and a 60-70 deg beam angle. oh and a cheap price would be nice too. does anyone know if this kind of led exist ?

as for the boards thanks for the links but i will be using commonly found boards as i will be wiring all the led's in paralell since i will be using a 3.5V/8A power supply to run them.

photo2000a: thanks for the links but unfortunately these manufacturers do not seem to be using the best led's around as lumen ratings are a bit low and the prices are a bit high.

i have therefore decided to do this the hard way and solder 1600 led's by hand as it seems that it is the only ( or most affordable ) way to get the brightest most efficient led flood light possible, whilst discovering and learning from my mistakes on the way to my goal. after all that is what being a flashaholic is about i guess.
if only i could find the perfect LED for this application........


----------



## Amonra (Jan 2, 2006)

oh, and happy new year to everyone


----------



## Amonra (Jan 2, 2006)

Good News, i just got to know that the wife of a friend of mine will do all the soldering for me for a small fee. she works as a professional 'solderer' with a local electronics factory but she works at home so she has all d equipment at her house. 
This is verrry good news for me. it will save me a lot of time and bad temper not to mention the perfect soldering unlike the pidgeon s**t soldering i do.

who knows i might even build some extra ones now.... or go crazy and do the whole showroom with LED floodlights.

That is IF i find the perfect LED.


----------



## Opto-King (Jan 2, 2006)

Hello,
I would go with 1W LED's form Seoul Semiconductors, Lumileds or similar.
Then you do not need so manny + that you will get a loong lifetime.

Most of the white 5mm LEDs only last for about 3-5000 hours, due to that the epoxy and the phosphor breaks down.

Good Luck!


----------



## Amonra (Jan 4, 2006)

I would like to go with the 5mm led due to the much better efficiency and the fewer heat considerations.

According to some tests carried out on CPF some LED brands will last longer than 3-5000 hours even if overdriven, and i will be riving them to spec @ 20mA.


----------



## photo2000a (Jan 5, 2006)

hey i stumbled accross this on the banners section

http://www.besthongkong.com/index.php?cPath=17


maybe it's something u might use?????


----------



## Amonra (Jan 6, 2006)

thanks photo200a, i have looked into those before but due to the little info about the LED's used and the LED's not being tightly packed ( meaning that the fixture will become very large for 400 LED's ) i have dismissed them as an option.


----------



## David_Web (Jan 6, 2006)

I just wanted to add my opinion.

I would get new lights with fluorescent tubes. Better colour and lumen/watt than any led today I think (exept maybe a red 200lm/w)
You can get them in colours from cold blue to warm white and they would last longer then most leds (if you get the higher quality once)

I don't know what would be more expensive or what would fit in with the architecture the best.

And be carefoul with leds, they might end up purple or blue or any other unwanted color.

Just wanted to give you more options to get the best resault.

Whatever you choose it will be intresting to see how it works out.
Be sure to take many pics under the progress so we can follow how it goes.

Can you post a pic so we know how it looks like?


----------



## Xzn (Jan 6, 2006)

I can tell you right now: going with LEDs would not be economical. It's probably along the same lines as using LEDs to light up a parking lot.

I would recommend those flourescent lights... not the old fashioned 40 watt tube, and not the compact flourescents either. They're like a double tube, very narrow in diameter, but are freakin bright, i mean, you cannot stare at them like you can with regular flourescent lights. Macy's here uses them to light up their ceiling hung signs.

Another option is to look on ebay for Metal Halide floodlight fixtures. They can be had for pretty cheap, example: http://cgi.ebay.com/150-watt-metal-...578525980QQcategoryZ58144QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


----------



## Amonra (Jan 16, 2006)

Im re considering using Lux1's or LuxIII's due to the recent price drop.
Anyone know how i can get 120pcs. SXOH/TXOH Lux1 or 120pcs. UYAH/VYAH Lux3 ?


----------



## pr5owner (Jan 16, 2006)

for value and output nothing beats CFL right now, you can get CFL bulbs for so cheap and they are way brighter than the incan counterparts,


----------



## Carbonium (Jan 17, 2006)

These are $12 at walmart. $10 at Sams Club and Costco if you have SCE as your electric company. I have 20 of them and only 1 failed in three years. I've seen them in white, silver and brown.

65 [email protected] Lumens for $12! 10,000 hour florescent bulbs. They even have a built in photocell so they turn on and off automatically.






http://www.lightsofamerica.com/floods.htm


----------



## IsaacHayes (Jan 18, 2006)

Wow, nice florecent! I'd defianlty go that route for house lighting...


----------



## Handlobraesing (Apr 9, 2006)

Amonra said:


> I am currently using 4pcs. of 500W halogen flood lights to light up the sign and interior of our showroom during the night and i have just realised that these lights cost me about 60 $ a month to run which is a bit too much. (electricity costs 0.16$ per KWh here and these bulbs run for 6 hours a day)
> 
> i could use 300W or 150W halogen bulbs to bring down the running costs but still they are fragile and unreliable, their colour is ugly and still cost a bit much to run.
> 
> ...



It's going to fail miserably. 500W halogen puts out around 10,000 lumens each, so the effect of dimming down to 2,800 lumens each would be significant. if it wasn't why not start saving energy by swapping in 250W or 300W bulbs in place of 500W?

I would go with four 100 watt or two 175 watt metal halide lamps. No spot source beats HID in efficiency.


----------



## SuperNinja (Apr 9, 2006)

Side note:
For anyone considering soldering a bunch of wire leaded LED's on a board, I would *THOROUGHLY* recommend that you not solder them directly to the board, if at all possible.

I would use breadboards or header sockets instead, so you can replace LED's in the future without having to hassle with desoldering and resoldering. (just cut the wire leads short on the LED, and then plug the LED in)

Examples:
Breadboards:
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category/105/Breadboards.html

Header sockets:
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/item/SIP-30/192/SNAPPABLE_30_PIN_SIP_SOCKET,_.1%22#34;_CENTERS_.html

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/item/SC-40/192/40_PIN_SOCKET_CONNECTOR,_0.1%22#34;_(2_X_20)_.html


----------



## LEDite (Apr 9, 2006)

Amonra;

I would recommend soldering the LED's directly in the PC boards. Heat sinking is much better when soldered directly to the PC board.

I've made some 36 LED (26K white) boards using this BGmicro circuit board:






It is designed as four strings in parallel, but can be wired for all of them in series.

Larry


----------



## SuperNinja (Apr 10, 2006)

LEDite said:


> Amonra;
> 
> I would recommend soldering the LED's directly in the PC boards. Heat sinking is much better when soldered directly to the PC board.


I've never had 5mm Leds get hot enough to necessitate heatsinking.
And the metal to metal contact between the socket and LED leads should be enough, as long as you aren't grossly overdriving the LED.


----------



## Handlobraesing (Apr 10, 2006)

LEDs are no more efficient than a 500W class halogen lamp. Why even bother?


----------



## beondwacko (Apr 10, 2006)

> The eBay vendor lck-led sells a variety of preassembled LED strips: http://cgi.ebay.com/7-Thin-LED-Stri...1QQcmdZViewItem I have some of his strips mounted on my car. He is erratic about questions but ships as advertised.


 I have been experimenting with these 18 LED strips as well. I enclosed them into a t-8 lamp guard with bubble wrap beneath the circuit board to take up the remaining space. I have been happy with the performance of these strips. In white, it drew about 110MA @ 12.2 volts. They throw a good wide spot, and at about 20 feet, they put out a halo that approx' 6' x 10'.

I did have one such unit running for about a month straight just to see how the longevity stacked up. At about a weeks time, 1 of the 18 led's went out. Then next week it came back to life! There was some reduced light output after all that constant run time ( sorry, I didn't take measurements of light output before/ after ) but we're also talking about roughly 5,000 hours of constant operation.

Seller ships a little slowly though. It takes about 2-2.5 weeks to recieve orders.


----------



## DFiorentino (Apr 10, 2006)

Anyone use one of these? 

I should put one in my kitchen. :huh: 

-DF


----------



## Amonra (Apr 10, 2006)

now that beats all i have seen or thought of so far and not all that expensive either.


----------



## jtice (Apr 10, 2006)

I know you asked for LEDs,

But really, I would look into a HID setup,
shouldnt really be much more than an LED setup (you will need alot of leds)
The HID will be even more effecient than the LEDs.
Just less bulb life.

~John


----------



## jtice (Apr 10, 2006)

Carbonium said:


> These are $12 at walmart. $10 at Sams Club and Costco if you have SCE as your electric company. I have 20 of them and only 1 failed in three years. I've seen them in white, silver and brown.
> 
> 65 [email protected] Lumens for $12! 10,000 hour florescent bulbs. They even have a built in photocell so they turn on and off automatically.
> 
> ...



I have not seen those anywhere local.

If anyone can find these at the $12 price, 
I would love aot have a couple, especially the white semi water proof models.
unless its going to be an insane shipping cost.

Thanks
~John


----------



## Amonra (Apr 10, 2006)

DFiorentino said:


> Anyone use one of these?
> 
> I should put one in my kitchen. :huh:
> 
> -DF



i just made a few calculations and found the following:

There are 25 parallel strings of 36pcs. 15,000MCD LED's in series.
The current passing through the whole fixture is 1Amp
Therefore 40mA is passing through each string 
i.e. each LED is recieving approx 3.06V 40mA 

Correct me if i'm wrong but the LED's are being overdriven and unless they are Nichia (which i doubt considering the price) they would probably not last for more than 2,000 hours.

It still is a nice eye popping fixture though.


----------



## Opto-King (Apr 11, 2006)

Hello guys,

I just read about the new SSC 5mm LED that has 25cd in brightness (25 000mcd) http://www.optoga.se/general_newsdetail.jsp?id=0000000000000rr&lang=en_US 
Has any one tested this LED?

I also read the following text on a web site;
Another new product, LWxxxA especially has much better reliability. No other comparable lamp-type LEDs give more amount of light than LWxxxA series. Reliability (time to the reach 50% degradation of luminous intensity) of LWxxxA series is stated as 70,000 hours at 20mA, which is the best one in the world. Most other competitors’ LEDs in the same test condition almost reach reliability of 10,000 hours. 

Can this be true?


----------



## Ken_McE (Apr 14, 2006)

*Thread Drift Alert*



Opto-King said:


> I also read the following text on a web site; LWxxxA especially has much better reliability.... more amount of light than LWxxxA series... Reliability ...Can this be true?



If it's LWxxxA saying all this, I would be doubtful. If CPFers start saying it I'd listen.


----------



## Opto-King (Apr 18, 2006)

*Re: Thread Drift Alert*



Ken_McE said:


> If it's LWxxxA saying all this, I would be doubtful. If CPFers start saying it I'd listen.


 
That's why I asked if any one have tested the new SSC 5mm white LEDs.


----------



## Amonra (Nov 8, 2006)

I finally got to building one using Cree XR-E LED's have a look here:https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/140425


----------



## AndyTiedye (Jan 18, 2007)

Adding to LED Fixed Lighting Index


----------

