# Mounting 5mm LEDs



## bfinleyui (Jan 22, 2013)

I did a search and came up fairly empty, with only a few threads mentioning mounting LEDs to a flat surface, and none of them in the last 5 years or so.

Basically I have a project (mentioned in another thread about wiring/resistor issues) where I'm wanting to throw as much light forward as possible, basically making a DIY uplight. Right now, I just have them sitting on top of a coaster drilled out with 4mm holes. Obviously I want something a little more sturdy and stable, not to mention looking pretty.

How does everyone go about mounting things? i'd like to cut off as little of the peripheral throw as possible, so I wouldn't be opposed to mounting them straight to the surface, if someone has an easy way to do that. 

The chrome ones look pretty, but are obviously going to cut off a lot of the throw, and seem to be more for panel mounting, rather than light output. The plastic ones with the ring look like they might work, but i'm not sure how they hold too terribly tightly without an exact thickness.

Is there some other, DIY option that works well? Hot glue seems like an option, but could prove messy. Is there some other kind of adhesive or mount that i should be looking for? I just need to nicely mount 15 or so LEDs in a 3" circle, and hold them securely while still giving off all their light.

Edit: similar to the way they're mounted in this picture


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## LuxTiop (Jan 22, 2013)

I would look for a non-conductive epoxy and maybe apply it to the side where the leads stick through. A more expensive option would be trying your luck at eagle, and design your own board. You could then use a surface mount 5mm, I think nichia makes "good" 5mm sealed surface mount LEDs. I guess if you were using eagle you could also design a board for the through-mount variants aswell. Best of luck.



regards,

LuxTiop


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## RoGuE_StreaK (Jan 23, 2013)

Following on from LuxTiop's comment about eagle, it may not actually be a bad idea to go down this route; there are cheap batch PCB companies out there, eg. seeed, dorkbot, that will do up professional PCBs with all the drilling, milling etc., for sweet bugger all. For example, if you could live with a 5cm (2") diameter circle, 10x boards will cost you $10 plus shipping, which I think is about $10. Go bigger than 5cm x 5cm and you break into the 10cm x 10cm size, which is more expensive.
You could make a "base" board and a "top / holder" board; base has the circuitry and holes for through-hole soldering of the LEDs, top board is purely decorative/mounting, with drilled and plated holes that fit neatly over your pre-soldered LEDs. So an LED sandwich, if you will (or vegemite on vitawheat).
Would make the whole soldering and assembly thing a lot easier and neater, could also include holes in both boards for screws etc.

For small designs, Eagle PCB free version is completely unrestricted. Only restriction is size.


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## bshanahan14rulz (Jan 23, 2013)

If you don't care about having a grid instead of rounded rows of LEDs, you could use run-of-the-mill perf board, and cover it with a plastic face plate with 5mm holes drilled in it, or with those 5mm LED panel mounts.

Also, most of the light that is "thrown" forward comes from the center area of the dome. You can experiment by blocking off what the chrome mounting piece would block off using some electrical tape or something opaque, to see if it affects the beam on your particular LEDs.

Cool tip on Eagle, that takes the "monkey with a hand-drill" out of the equation (No offense meant at the op, is what I call myself when I attempt a mod on the cheap)


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## bfinleyui (Jan 23, 2013)

Thanks, I'll give eagle a look. I also did some more research, and found that 3/16 rubber grommets are 4.7625mm, so i'm gonna pick up a pack of those, try drilling into the metal lids of the mason jars I'm using. The rubber should insulate the lid from shorts, add a little epoxy to secure the LED in the grommet, and it should achieve the same effect. If that doesn't work, i might try MDF or plastic mason jar lids.

Or I'll electrocute everyone and burn down my wedding reception. Either or.

In terms of epoxy, just verifying that unless it says conductive, it's non-conductive, correct?


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## bshanahan14rulz (Jan 23, 2013)

Congratulations!

And yeah, usually it is non-conductive. 

If you have a bunch of these to make, you probably ought to buy some pizza and have a soldering party lol


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## argleargle (Jan 23, 2013)

bfinleyui said:


> In terms of epoxy, just verifying that unless it says conductive, it's non-conductive, correct?



Some epoxies contain metal. Just smear some across a piece of paper, let harden and hit it with your ohm meter for the final word.



bshanahan14rulz said:


> If you have a bunch of these to make, you probably ought to buy some pizza and have a soldering party lol



I saw a guy use a piece of a pizza box to mount LEDs once, he was too cheap to buy perfboard. I've seen stale tortillas used as well. (Whaa?)

Eat the pizza. Turn the box into a flashlight.


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## bfinleyui (Jan 23, 2013)

I am back to report AWESOME results. 

Got some rubber grommets with a 3/16 inner diameter, and drilled into a mason jar lid. I didn't have a bit that was quite big enough, so I had to make the holes a bit bigger with pressure on an angle, and don't have an exact measurement (depends on the grommet anyway), slide the grommet in (destroyed a few before realizing the best way to do that, with needle-nosed pliers), and then shove the LED in there. It holds it VERY snugly, to the point where I don't think I even need any glue to keep it secure. I have to try pretty hard with pressure on the right points to get it out of the grommet, and that's with me *trying*. Accidental removal chance is nearly nil.

In a cool side effect, there's some light bleed out of the bottom, which (at least with bare wires) lights up the jar a bit. In side-by-side tests, i couldn't tell a difference in the throw pattern between a bare LED and one mounted in a grommet.

Without further ado, le pics (again, ignore the destruction on the grommets, i didn't figure out how to put them in properly until i was down to my last one):



















So excited. Off to buy 1000 grommets on ebay for 8 bucks


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## AnAppleSnail (Jan 23, 2013)

And the 300 mason jars? Wow.

If you had all the money ever, you could add a solar panel to each and make wedding gifts


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## bfinleyui (Jan 23, 2013)

AnAppleSnail said:


> And the 300 mason jars? Wow.
> 
> If you had all the money ever, you could add a solar panel to each and make wedding gifts



Each mason jar will, in the final version, have somewhere between 12 and 15 LEDs. I only need to make about 10 of them for my wedding, but a friend saw the 'prototype' and told me I needed to start an etsy shop. Might take her up on that idea 

I had my numbers confused, I can get either a 5mm grommet, lot of 1000 from hong kong for $15, or stay in the USA, get grommets measured at 3/16, 100 packs for $8. I'll probably stay local, just for shipping speed's sake, and so as not to be stuck with 999 grommets that don't fit right.


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## argleargle (Jan 23, 2013)

Wiping the 5mms with a rag soaked in WD-40 will make insertion into the grommet all the easier.

Any thoughts for a glare shield on the rim of those jars? I mean... are they going to be on tables or something? It's your show, right?

Looks fantastic, by the way. Thanks for the neat pics. Your project is ramping up!


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## bfinleyui (Jan 23, 2013)

"it's my show"? Like, is it my wedding? Yes. But I feel like if I called it a "show", that might not go over so well with the fiancee 

These will be replacing uplights that were going to cost 19 bucks a piece to *rent*, sitting on the floor along the walls (will find something to weigh them down, maybe some beads or sand), so i'm not sure a glare shield is going to be needed. I might take some sandpaper to the top so it's an even color, if it bothers the ladyfriend.

The centerpieces are just going to be sets of 6 wide-throw LEDs inside a paper lantern, so all that light will be diffused anyway.

Edit: Also just found a lot of 1,000 3/16 ID grommets on ebay, priced at $39 + shipping. It was scheduled to end in 2 hours. Emailed the seller, offered 30 shipped, he replied with 39 shipped (shipping was goign to be 6 or 7 bucks), and I bought it. So I now have 1,000 grommets at 3.9 cents per piece. The grommets are straight off digikey, where they would have been almost 8 cents a piece for a lot of 1,000.


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## argleargle (Jan 24, 2013)

bfinleyui said:


> "it's my show"? Like, is it my wedding? Yes. But I feel like if I called it a "show", that might not go over so well with the fiancee



Oh! I see. It's your fiancee's "show!"  Maybe you could call it a "production?" Just don't have a "chair problem," like in that movie "Very Bad Things."



bfinleyui said:


> so i'm not sure a glare shield is going to be needed. I might take some sandpaper to the top so it's an even color, if it bothers the ladyfriend.


Just a simple sleeve of thin paper around the jar rim would do on the cheap if you did need one. Just a thought.


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## bshanahan14rulz (Jan 24, 2013)

Sleeve of paper around the top is a nice glare shield! Idea is that when you look at the LEDs or see them out of the corner of your eye, the harsh, point-source light is too attention-grabbing.

Glad it all is working out well! Looks easy to solder too, if you go that route.

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz < might help you a bit if you want to use resistors. For a one-night usage, resistors might not be worth it IF a prototype full LED array works fine without burning the LEDs out.

So, you have 100 of these to make? If you are local, I'll help out for the price of a few of the leftovers ;-)

Congratulations, you two have a bright future!


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## bfinleyui (Jan 24, 2013)

bshanahan14rulz said:


> Sleeve of paper around the top is a nice glare shield! Idea is that when you look at the LEDs or see them out of the corner of your eye, the harsh, point-source light is too attention-grabbing.
> 
> Glad it all is working out well! Looks easy to solder too, if you go that route.
> 
> ...



Heh, i see what you did there. 

I have to make 10-15 of the up lights (10-15 leds in a parallel array with 1/8w 100ohm resistor for each led) . Tried single resistors to dissipate the whole array,but it would need 1w resistors,and even then might get hot. Bought 1000 resistors on jameco and called it good.

I'll also need to make 25 centerpieces, with 6 leds and a single resistor,running off a 3xAA battery boxea, which I got off jameco for 60 cents a piece. I think I'm using a single 1/4w resistor on that parallel array, can't remember the prototype I have worked up at home. 

So overall, about 170 resistors, 320 leds, and a lot of beer consumed while making these things. And I'm getting my friends to donate all their old unwanted cell phone chargers to the cause.


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## argleargle (Jan 24, 2013)

bshanahan14rulz said:


> Congratulations, you two have a bright future!





bfinleyui said:


> Heh, i see what you did there.



Brilliant!


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## RoGuE_StreaK (Jan 24, 2013)

bfinleyui said:


> These will be replacing uplights that were going to cost 19 bucks a piece to *rent*



Sounds like my wedding; the price of renting or buying a wishing-well was ridiculous, so decided to make our own; walking through a hardware store, saw a small flip-top bin and thought, maybe...
.. and so our wishing-droid was born! 
(same colour scheme as our wedding)








bfinleyui said:


> (will find something to weigh them down, maybe some beads or sand)


How about clear things to work with the light, like those round glass stones? Or even "better" (depending on your tastes), fake diamonds; search ebay for "clear diamond wedding", switch to "buy now", sort "price + postage:lowest", and include "worldwide", and you'll get a whole heap of cheap blingy options. eg. 1000x 4.5mm diamonds for $1.50 shipped, 200x 8mm for $1.90 shipped, 500x 6.5mm for $2.20 shipped... or mix and match different sizes.

Oh, and start selling the results, when you add the word "wedding" to the start of something you can charge 10x as much as normal! :laughing:


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## bfinleyui (Feb 4, 2013)

Back with some more shots of the final prototype. The fiancee gets to figure out what to do with the inside of the jar, probably leaning toward frosting it. Still need to get a diamond bit to drill a hole for the power cable in the bottom corner of the jar, and add a glare shield (thinking a few inches of PVC, if I can find the right diameter to just slide over the top) but other than that, it's fairly ready to go. Thanks for everyone's help.


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## argleargle (Feb 4, 2013)

bfinleyui said:


> Back with some more shots of the final prototype. The fiancee gets to figure out what to do with the inside of the jar, probably leaning toward frosting it.



A hard bead blast would make short work of the frosting. Much quicker and cleaner than messing with etching chemicals. This would require a blast cabinet, though... Note that "soft" beads would do absolutely nothing to the jar.



bfinleyui said:


> Still need to get a diamond bit to drill a hole for the power cable in the bottom corner of the jar, and add a glare shield (thinking a few inches of PVC, if I can find the right diameter to just slide over the top) but other than that, it's fairly ready to go. Thanks for everyone's help.



I've used a ceramic tile-cutting drill bit before for drilling glass. The best tip I can give you is go SLOWLY and work with the jar just under the surface of a bucket of water. Glass likes to soak up heat and crack by the time you're done with the hole.

Looks like a great project nearing its finale. Great work, Finley.


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