LED's for task lighting?

[Mike in Utah]

Zeke,

Thanks for your comments and link!  I feel the same as you in regard to using the lights on machinery tools.

I'm going to look over the link you provided and see what is available.  May have more questions for you...that is, if you don't mind?

[hydrosun]

I don't remember the part numbers from superbrightleds.com. I've order several times and alway went for the car taillight bulbs. So the 1156 bulb with 12, 21, or 30 leds.  I use the 30 led bulb for a headlight for my bicycle. It's brighter than anything I've used before.

I use leds for flashlights and headlights to work in the dark. I use cfl's for area lights because they are better at providing lots of light. Leds are best for focused small amounts of light for portable uses.

Chris

[David1950]

Go to your local truck shop and look at the new led light for trucks, they work on 12volts DC and come in white,red, yellow, and sometimes blue. They have about 15 very bright led in the bulb.

[nothing to lose]

Ghurd has some nice stuff for sure.

G,

Wife is still using one of those lanterns I got from you last year, we still never needed to change the batteries in it

Still using the other stuff too on the same batteries but hers is the most used. She uses it every work night to get to the car after dark and most nights uses it for a reading light for along time too.

[ghurd]

A "glowing" endorsement for proper design criteria.  Glad she's happy!

Imagine if the alkaline 'AA's were replaced with rechargables, and connected to a stepper windmill...

G-

[nothing to lose]

Ya, sure, but then I would need a charge controller and a dump load too

How many months has this been on one set of batteries? I gave her the lantern when I got that box from you last year. About 9 months?

And the kid uses a tap light alot too.

We may not kill those AA batteries durring their shelf life. And as I recall I did not even use good batteries, they were cheap dollar store batteries.

[Hellion Darklord]

This is my first post ever.  I would like to know how to go about making a LED light for my bike.  I have thought about making it from dozens of LED lights.  What I want is to place as many white LEDs as close together as possible and be able to turn on only as many as I want at one time.  If I can use some kind of POT to do this it would be GREAT! and if not I have ideas for something else that would be a little bulky, but still do the trick.

I have really no idea what I'm doing.  I think I want to make the LEDs sit in a round housing if possible.  I think it would make sense to have the LEDs aranged so that the center LED sticks further forward than the ring of LEDs around it and the ring around the center LED set further forward than the next larger ring. The reason I would do this is to spread some light out to the sides and also make the light more visible to others.  I think that the light from the outside LEDs will reflect a little off the sides of the center LEDs.  Does this make a little sense or is this totally wacky?  I want to be able to pack the LEDs as tightly as possible. Would supergluing them together make them get too hot?  Do they even get hot?

Is it possible to use one BIG resistor instead of a big cluster of small ones?  It would be nice to keep weight as low as possible.  I am thinking about drilling holes into a cone of solid rubber or trying to find something that I can just poke the leads through that will retain a nice cone shape and be easily moldable yet nonconductive. I'm hoping that with a 12.5w battery from this old light http://www.cygolite.com/2-Products/10-Night%20Rover-2%20in%201.gif  I will be able to make a light that shines brighter than the headlights on a car and last longer than 1 hour on high.

Also, I think I will use this LED... http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/W18030.htm it is around $50.oo for 50 LEDs. Is there a brighter more efficient LED out there? this one is 5mm but it looks to me like it has good output, so I will allow for a little bit of bulk as long as this thing will be bright like daylight. (I'm still afraid of the dark... especially at night!)

If one LED puts out 18000 MCD will two alike LEDs put out 32000 MCD?  900,000 MCD with 50 LEDs seems bright enough don't you think? If so I think I can get pretty bright with the battery I have.  The battery is supposed to last atleast 3 hours running at 6 watts. 50 LEDs would run with a lot less than 6watts right?

Well I have so many danged questions I don't know what to do with myself, so I think I'll go to bed and try to worry about the 6 to 8 hour night rides (with that pretty blonde I'm drooling over) I want endure tomorrow.  I can't seem like some kind of looser who is afraid of the dark infront of her, now can I?

And remember, an exponent is a phonological manifestation of a morphosyntactic property

Hellion