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Thread: 10 watt LED Bright??

  1. #1

    Default 10 watt LED Bright??

    Well I wired my first 10 watt LED today Not as hard as I first thought, thanks to a good tut and other members with knowledgeable answers. However, I am at somewhat of a loss to see the difference in brightness between a blue LEDengin 10 watt, and a Blue Seoul P4 LED.
    Of course I set aside my bias (I dig upon P4's big time ) in order to go to a 10watt blue. But I'm still kind of scratching my head. At first I thought my focal length was off, so I switched lenses. It seemed to help, but over all I can't see much of a difference. I also tried different blades with different amounts of diffuser. Both 7/8 and 1" stock. What I notice in almost every case was the brunt of the LED's brightness seemed to be 3-6 from the emitter, dimming as it reached the tip of the blade.
    Where a P4 and a Rebel seems to maintain a brightness evenly to the tip.
    I will have pics soon, both of the wiring on the LED and what the blades look like.
    Perhaps someone could shed some light on this for me? (aw man pun intended )

  2. #2

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    I don't have a comparison between LEDs, but I do know that just a single die on an Engin 10W is brighter than my storebought Vader stringblade by quite a bit. I'd imagine that four dice running simultaneously should put pretty much everything on the market to shame. I've also got pretty even lighting. I'm not sure what kind of diffuser you're using, but I just bought a 40" long roll of transparent gift wrap from Joann Fabrics and rolled up about 6ft of it, stuck it in, glued on the tip, and went for it. I couldn't believe how bright and even it was.

    For the price, though, I'll pretty much take an Engin RGBW every time. I have my board set up with a color mixing addon and am pretty satisfied with any single-die color I have, let alone those that use custom shading. I've been running it at 750mA so far. When I get the modifications complete, I'll kick it up to 1A and see if that makes any noticeable difference.

  3. #3

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    Cool. I'm actually looking at how much diffuser I currently have in my blades. I'm sure that's a factor. I also get my diffuser from joan's as well. It hasn't let me down yet. Again though I'm just doing my initial go around with 10 watts. Hopefully I'll have a bit more after I've done all the little "tests" I'm planning

  4. #4
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    How are you running the 10W? The green and blue LEDengins take QUITE a bit more voltage than a Rebel and even more than a Seoul. At 1500ma they want arount 4v+. If you're running two dice in series, and only have a 7.4v pack, you are sort of starving it. If you run two dice in parallel and give them 2A or more then you'll see it shine. 4 Dice all at once should be pretty impressive.

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  5. #5

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    To FenderBender you listen.

    If you really want a bright blade, you could run all four dice. Like he said, though, you've got to make sure you're feeding the little guy enough juice to get him out of bed. I've heard good things about series/parallel setups, but I don't know exactly what you have configured, so it's hard to suggest anything. If you're using a soundboard, remember that they have maximum voltage outputs. If your LED wants more voltage than the board can supply, it isn't going to light up like it should.

    With a single-color quad, there really isn't much reason not to run it full-blast if you can.

  6. #6

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    Hi!,

    A quick question to Fenderbender: You refer to the use of the 7.4 volt battery solution with 2 dice in series as being on the low side for Vf on the LEDEngin (Many thanks for the excellent series/parallel tutorial you wrote on the LEDEngin. BTW the wiring setup works, with adjustments for current required, very well on the Quad Rebels too). If the 7.4 volt battery packs are too low, what would be your thoughts on a viable level of voltage and how to achieve it while avoiding the space issue that seems to raise its ugly head when we start looking at the higher voltage packs (11.1 volt or 14.8 volt)? Thanks!

    Johannes

  7. #7

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    Okay I have a couple pics and I'll explain what I did, first my pictures


    So for the sake of explanation I'll call the part of the LED where the four pads are the bottom, and where the "dot" is the top.
    From the bottom right (pos and neg pads) I have a jumper going from the "+" to the neg pad on the right of the star. I have a wire on the neg pad to my buckpuck. From the two pads on the left (small pos and neg) I have a pos going to my buckpuck and a jumper from the neg pad to the pos pad on the left of the star.
    At the top (where the dot is) I have a neg wire running to my buckpuck, and to the right of that (and the dot) I have a pos wire running to my buck puck.
    Pretty much the same way it looks in the pic at the begining of the thread.
    So maybe a wiring check is needed
    EDIT:
    So I think I'm getting the idea now, the way I have it wired in the pics (using 1 100mA buckpuck) IF there are two series pairs I'm running them off the same power source I'm "splitting the current" by doing parallel.
    So does that mean with two series pairs I need to buckpucks? Or will doing them in series solve the brightness/power issue?
    Last edited by Noyl Wendor; 09-09-2012 at 12:19 PM.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Johannes Huber View Post
    Hi!,

    A quick question to Fenderbender: You refer to the use of the 7.4 volt battery solution with 2 dice in series as being on the low side for Vf on the LEDEngin (Many thanks for the excellent series/parallel tutorial you wrote on the LEDEngin. BTW the wiring setup works, with adjustments for current required, very well on the Quad Rebels too). If the 7.4 volt battery packs are too low, what would be your thoughts on a viable level of voltage and how to achieve it while avoiding the space issue that seems to raise its ugly head when we start looking at the higher voltage packs (11.1 volt or 14.8 volt)? Thanks!

    Johannes
    I'd like to know the same fender. I LOVE my first saber so far, it's gorgeous, and the PC sounds GREAT, but the blade (deep red rebel single die) isn't bright enough (@700ma) for my tastes. The hilt is so pretty, I'm pretty close to just leaving the dang tube out of it, putting the blade plug in, and imagining a blade appearing when It screams on. HAHA.

    So, if I want to run four 10w led engin dice off of a petit crouton 2.0, what battery solution would be best? Two 18500 packs wired together? Can the crouton handle that?

  9. #9
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    Cool color LEDengins (green, blue, white) like a LOT of vf. Usually right at or more than a 7.4v pack can provide. Those packs will usually start out over 8v fully charged but as soon as a load is placed on them (turning a saber on) that will drop rapidly to 7.4 and even lower.

    Two parallel series pairs off of one puck (1A puck) are splitting that 1A into 500ma each pair. This isn't even the minimum required current (750ma) that a LEDengin needs. You are starving the hell out of those LEDs Get two pucks so that each pair will get at least 1A. In stunt configuration (no soundboard) you're probably ok with just a 7.4v pack. With a soundboard, it will 'work' but without 18650s it won't be an optimal set up at all. I have run a full power green LEDengin off of 14500s with a CF. It works, but isn't optimal.

    Most soundboards have an input limit of 12v. A 3 cell LI-Ion will be more than that fully charged. Not a good thing right now. Will it work?....maybe.

    If you're new, please take the time we all consider just as precious as you and READ!

    GET LATHED!

    Official BMF and LORD OF THE STRINGS

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by FenderBender View Post
    Cool color LEDengins (green, blue, white) like a LOT of vf. Usually right at or more than a 7.4v pack can provide. Those packs will usually start out over 8v fully charged but as soon as a load is placed on them (turning a saber on) that will drop rapidly to 7.4 and even lower.

    Two parallel series pairs off of one puck (1A puck) are splitting that 1A into 500ma each pair. This isn't even the minimum required current (750ma) that a LEDengin needs. You are starving the hell out of those LEDs Get two pucks so that each pair will get at least 1A. In stunt configuration (no soundboard) you're probably ok with just a 7.4v pack. With a soundboard, it will 'work' but without 18650s it won't be an optimal set up at all. I have run a full power green LEDengin off of 14500s with a CF. It works, but isn't optimal.

    Most soundboards have an input limit of 12v. A 3 cell LI-Ion will be more than that fully charged. Not a good thing right now. Will it work?....maybe.
    yeah I can't argue that But what I can do is save my 10watt LEDengin for my next build , which is a PC 2.0. So then from that I'll be able to wire and configure the LED so I get the max brightness out of it. This of course is using a more suitable power solution, and a board that will work better with that LED.
    So its not like I wasted anything, and I walked away having learned something useful for the next time at the plate.
    Thanks again for all your help Fender I do very much appreciate it

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