LED Cabin Lighting

[Davepar]

Has anybody found any good LED cabin lighting?

I bought some LEDs from www.superbrightleds.com to play with. They look pretty good, but I'm not sure a single LED would provide enough light. I'm thinking about kludging together a few LEDs with a resistor, and mounting it in one of the interior covers.

Spruce sells some lights for $60 or $140, which is crazy. The LEDs at superbright cost about $1.50 each, and the mounting bezel is $.25. A 3 LED light would cost less than $10.

Dave

[Davepar]

Never mind. I found some lights on this page that should work perfectly:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/mini_tubes.htm

[Scott Will]

I'm looking at it too. Walter shows a "Luxeon Star" LED on his website. However, I know nothing about it. Looks like he uses only one and mentions it's super bright.

Luxeon? Star Power Light Sources are the world's brightest LEDs offering up to 120 lumens per single source and available in a variety of configurations. Power and superb lumen maintenance, far exceeding other standard and high-flux LEDs, are hallmarks of Luxeon Star.


Lumileds website

Here's a picture from hist website.

[RV_7A]

Yep, Luxeons are the only way to go. They are what I use in my Nav Lights. For interior lighting just one 3 watt Luxeon Star Lambertian LXHL-LW3C with a Power Puck using a heatsink is just crazy. Actually a 1 watt one is plenty.

-Jeff

[Scott Will]

So a 3W is overkill? Could you put it on a dimmer and say turn it down in flight, if necessary?

What kind of heatsink is needed and where do you get it? I'm assuming you only need a heatsink for anything greater than 1W?

What's the best place to get these units?

Sorry for all the questions...

Thanks,
Scott

[Davepar]

From what I've read, you can't use just any dimmer on LEDs. It has to be a dimmer that pulses the output, such as the one from Flight Data Systems, http://www.fdatasystems.com/LC_40.htm.

Since I answered one question, I'll add some more.

The Luxeons look cool, but aren't they overkill for this application? I just need a little bit of light to find stuff in the cabin or baggage area on a dark night. Those Luxeons sound like they'll blind a person, or at the very least kill your night vision.

What's the advantage to using the PowerPuck over plain old resistors? It seems that with a fairly constant 14 volts, it would be easy to pick an appropriately sized resistor.

This site has some useful info on LEDs, including a calculator for the resistor size needed for one to many LEDs.
http://led.linear1.org/

[RV_7A]

You can use a dimmer on the Power Puck. As long as you just reduce the input voltage. Then the 3 watt one would do fine. You can get Computer Processor heatsinks at most stores that sell computer parts such as Frys and then cut it to a smaller size. Then glue it on with thermal epoxy. They will run fine at about 130 dregrees without issue. You can get all these parts from ledsupply.com[/color]]LEDSUPPLY.com and like Scott mentioned above you can get specs on any of them from Lumileds.com. The 1 and 3 watt Luxeon Star Hex and Star/C are the easiest to mount and connect. I prefer the Star Hex since you can easily solder wires right on it. Figure spending about $40 for the Power Puck and a Star with shipping. The heat sink is about $5. Its pricey for just a light but they are neato and will never burn out and its a modern day gadget. What could be funner?? !!

-Jeff

[hevansrv7a]

Check out Emeralights on the Wicks site.

[Scott Will]

Jeff... how many MA for the powerpuck - 350 or 700 if you go with a 3W?

Also looking at other places like boat or car supply places. Maybe something like this?

Hella LED Oval Flushmount Lamps Long lasting light with little power consumption.

These LED oval flushmount lamps from Hella are suitable for step lighting, interior or exterior courtesy lighting, and lighting for storage areas. These long lasting, waterproof, and shockproof lights are computer-designed to provide an even light output. Easily installed, these lights are pre-wired with patented cable sealing, and have a 100,000-hour service life.

And here's a link to the Hella website... these might work?

[RV_7A]

If you go with using one 3 watt Star you can use the 350ma Power Puck.