A tale of LED's, living on the edge

[Graniterich]

As so many projects do, this one got a little out of hand. I was missing building, so I cleaned up the side yard. There was a piece of one hundred year old wood plank 2 x8 x 6'. Was from another project eight years ago. it has been sitting upside the house, in the dirt since 2007. The end was cracking a bit, thinking penetrating epoxy, but still straight and rough sawed. I decided to make a bumper for my #1 woody hf base. I cut it down to about 3 1/2 inches by 50". Looked nice! This is where I was supposed to seal, and mount it on the trailer.

Then I thought about that roll of LEDs I gave my wife fir a display, she was finished and I had an idea. What if a routed as slot, and added some cool running lights! What if I added the turn/brake lights! So I quickly cut and wire some led's, route some nice old smell wood, and had out back to finish up. Mind you these are indoor LED's, and the plan is to use the self adhesive to stick down, then fill the routed slot with epoxy. As soon as the epoxy goes in , I notice the 42" long led string floats to top on one end, I go grab a toothpick and push it down, this goes on for over an hour when it is finally setting up. looks god. Meantime I put five coats of penetrating epoxy on the rest of wood, looking even better. After a couples of hours, I decide to test LED's again, see how they look. they half ligth up on all three strings . The epoxy and electronics did not get along. I also realize this was not well thought out. The 3528 led's arent going to pass the daylight test. I try to remove the strings, the epoxy wins.... I go drink beer


Next day I research led outputs. I find this:

LED Dimensions Chip Surface Area Lumen Flux Power Draw
3528 LED 3.5 mm x 2.8 mm 9.8 mm² 6-8 lumens 20-30 mA @ 2.8-3.4 Volts
5050 LED 5.0 mm x 5.0 mm 25 mm² 16-22 lumens 60 mA @ 2.8-3.4 Volts
5630 (5730) LED 5.6 mm x 3.0 mm 16.8 mm² 45-50 lumens 150 mA @ 2.8-3.4 Volts

Instead of 6-8 lumens per led, I could get 45-50 per. Found some on ebay water proof for $12. I routed the epoxy out of the groves, and used Lexel adhesive to attach.

Then I tested, WOW are they bright! So screw the man, I removed the stock turn lights, put led side markers there, and am rolling with non DOT approved lighting!

Here are a couple of poor pictures, will get better ones later

I need to add from my phone..

[Graniterich]

uploadfromtaptalk1447961151012.jpg (53.76 KiB) Viewed 1709 times

uploadfromtaptalk1447961133015.jpg (78.28 KiB) Viewed 1709 times

[H.A.]

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[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Great tip, thanks for sharing

[OverTheTopCargoTrailer]

Great tip, thanks for sharing