a photoblog of what i did today.....

[xoxoxoBruce]

...the halogens get hot and can melt forgotten chocolate chips on the bottom shelf of the corner pantry cabinet

What is this "forgotten chocolate chips" of which you speak?

The power supply is sufficient to power both rolls(600 LEDs). Therefore you can cut them up into as many strips as you want, observing the groups of three, and power them with that one power supply, yes?

[glatt]

Yes. But with one caveat. The rolls say they can't be wired in series with another roll, only in parallel. So you'd have to be careful to not exceed the length of one roll with any one cut up strip. Not sure if I worded that correctly, but I bet you understand.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Clear as a bell. At 12 VDC, a whole roll (300) draws 24 watts, about 2 amps. In series it would bump the amperage up more than the designer is comfortable with.

[Pamela]

To answer the other question asked:

A switching power supply is one in which the incoming AC voltage is first converted into DC, then fed to a series of MOSFET switching transistors translate the DC into high freq AC which is then fed into a transformer with the output being returned to DC in more useful voltages.

The advantage of a Switched Mode Power Supply is that is is much more eficient and more versatile, able to provide either AC or DC outputs depending on the circuit involved. It is necessarily more complicted but has far less hysteresis and parasitic power loss than a comparable linear power supply and generates less heat.

That's as simple as I can put it without going all TW.

[glatt]

Thanks Pamela. I've been working on this much of this weekend, and it's taking a lot longer than I excepted. I'm a novice at soldering, and didn't realize how much there is in this. Over a hundred solder joints, and all those tiny wire pieces to cut and strip and twist. I'm improving though.

[glatt]

OK, so I made this pile of LED strips, and it took exactly 100 solder joints to do it. That's the most soldering I've ever done.


This was the first joint I soldered. Sad. I know.


And this was one of the last. I feel like I got better.

[glatt]

I locked the exposure and white balance of the camera and took a before shot with halogens.


And and after shot with LEDs.

[glatt]

The LEDs are much brighter, use a quarter of the power, and are slightly more white. But still on the warm side of white, not cool blue at all.

[busterb]

Great job. I really need something like that over my sink and counters, but I'll not try.

[Griff]

Much better glatt! I used an led set up for the chickens this winter.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That design I'd describe as, glatten-for-punishment.
It looks like you could have used 20% to 30% less and still had plenty of light, but you really don't know what it will look like until you've done a couple.
Good job, Sir, you've earned a degree in kitchen lighting.

[glatt]

It doesn't have to be quite so bright, but it's not too bright. I think I can wire a special LED dimmer after the transformer if we decide it's too bright, but for now it's good.

I like it that the light is so diffuse now and even. Plus the sink has always been too dark. And now it's nicely lit.

[infinite monkey]

All that rosin makes me shudder. DOD 2000 and all. Get me some trichlorethene, stat! Nah, really, that stuff was poison, but we practically bathed in it during my early years working for a defense contractor.

But really, glatt, you're talented and handy! Good work.

[Griff]

That stuff was so nasty.

[glatt]

It's been really dry, and we just set the humidifier up in the bedroom, but really it needed to be in the living room. The problem is that ALL the outlets are behind furniture and in use, so there is no place to plug the humidifier in.

So I was pondering that, and getting more annoyed that every time we want to plug something in in the living room we run in to this problem. Dammit. We need another outlet in there.

So I looked around and decided that the best place is right under the thermostat. And the bonus is that the thermostat wires are already leading into that wall cavity.

So I dug around in my junk piles and found everything that I needed. Cut a hole in the wall that worked out perfectly. Right in the middle of the stud bay. Fished a wire up from the basement alongside the thermostat wires, and called to my son to grab it.

That's when he got interested. He had done an apprentice day with a real electrician and actually learned a lot. So I let him do all the work of wiring the outlet up. I double checked that he put the right colors on the right screws and that they were tight, but he did everything else himself.


Then I went down in the unfinished basement and tied it in to a very seldomly used circuit in my shop. That took about 2 hours because I needed one big wire nut that I didn't have, and had to go to the store and pay my 22 cents to get it. I had to rewire a switch, a switched outlet, and install a junction box, but it was all pretty easy since it's unfinished down there.

And now we have a humidifier going! It looks like that outlet just belongs and has always been there.

This could be in the proud parent thread. Or the what's making you happy thread. But it's here.

Fuckin' A. An outlet.