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Lighting Projects Using Light Emitting Diodes "If you would like to install LEDs for your low light requirements, you will pretty much be on your own. I do not know of any source for these lighting systems in a consumer form. My designs are all custom and are built using discrete LED components from various sources, soldered on wire leads, and power cubes with dropping resistors." |
Tim Skaja is married with two daughters; Melissa is 8 and Sarah is 5 and lives in a small town called Greenville, which is about 35 miles North East of Dallas on Interstate 30. He is proud of his automation system, and taking the advise of many folks who have seen his capabilities, has decided to try to make automation pay the bills by doing it as a part-time job under the company name of C-Cube Automation. He hopes to transition to a full time business within a few years. |
Some very impressive and useful lighting effects can be obtained using Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) around the house. These lighting effects can enhance visibility of control panels and telephone dial pads, provide lighting for walkways and doorways, and provide unique lighting effects strictly for aesthetic purposes.
There are several major advantages in using LEDs for light sources:
- They are very inexpensive
- They virtually last forever and don't burn out
- They don't disrupt normal lighting conditions since they illuminate at a very low level
- They are easy to work with
- They can be obtained at almost any electronics stores
- They use next to nothing in terms of energy consumption
- LEDs also come in multi-color styles for interesting effects
- LED intensity is easily adjusted
- They put off very little heat
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- There are very few ways to mount these little components with off-the-shelf hardware
- The LED components come only in a few limited colors
- The LEDs normally are installed by soldering
Below are some short descriptions of lighting projects that I have completed in my home.
Doorway Illumination
During the construction phase of our home in 1988, I installed twisted pair wiring to each side of every interior doorway. I drilled a 1/4 inch hole in each side door frame and installed a small green colored LED flush with the door frame about 42 inches from the floor. These LEDs are powered by a small plug-in power cube and a dropping resistor. All the LEDs are fed in parallel about 1.2 Volts DC. There are about 20 LEDs in all, located in all the interior doorways. The LED power supply is turned on whenever the light sensor for the outdoor Malibu lights is activated, so their operation is automatic. When the LEDs are off, they are almost invisible and only noticeable if you are looking for them. I selected a dropping resistor that would cause the LEDs to give off a glow rather than a shining light. The overall effect is a lighted path at each doorway. When you look down the hallway, it is kind of like looking down the runway while you are landing in an airplane. The total project cost about $20 and some time to install the wiring, power supply, and LEDs. One comment I hear when I describe these lights is; Why do you need them, since they are so dim, the normal ambient light in most homes after dark is sufficient to walk around. True, when your eyes are adjusted to the dark, it doesn't take much light to see and avoid large items like furniture. Think though, when you leave a room after dark and shut out the light as you leave the room. Your eyes take a few moments to adjust to the low light level. With these LEDs installed, they are just bright enough to see the door openings or the marked pathway in the tile to avoid hitting anything as you walk around. Believe me, these little LEDs have saved me many a stubbed toe over the years!
Floor Tile Illumination
Using the same power source, I have similar LEDs installed in the floor tiles in the living room in a walkway area. Since the LEDs are so small, they can be installed in places that normal lights cannot fit. I soldered two wires directly to the ends of the LED's terminals, and covered them with heatshrink to prevent the wet grout from getting on the metal surfaces and causing corrosion at some later date. The LEDs were laid in the space between the tiles (about 1/8 inch wide and just below the surface of the tile). Next, they were covered with grout and the very top (end) of the LEDs were wiped clean of residual grout. You can vacuum or walk over them and never know they are there. Again, the LEDs come on around dark and glow to mark the walkway. When they are on, you can see and avoid stubbing your toe on the rock base that forms a small raised platform for our pot-belly heating stove. When they are off they are virtually invisible.
Telephone Dial Illumination
Another good use I found for LED lights are above the telephone on my side of the master bedroom headboard. I have Panasonic KXT7030 phones, and unfortunately, they do not have a lighted dial. For use at night, a yellow colored LED shines down and softly illuminates the dial faceplate. It does not give off too much light and does not disturb my sleep. I installed the LED using solid conductor wire and sealed the whole LED and approximately 1" of the wire in heatshrink. This method of installation enables me to move the 1" end with the LED at the tip to enable pointing it at the phone dial. To power the LED, and other LEDs in the headboard, I used an old power cube (9 Vdc) and a series dropping resistor. Again, I selected a resistor size to produce a glow rather than a shining light effect. Since these LEDs use next to nothing in the way of power, the LEDs I use in the master bedroom headboard stay on all the time.
Custom Console Illumination
In our master bedroom, I designed and built a custom remote control panel under the edge of the headboard (Reference Sweet Automated Dreams article Mar/April 1998). Mounted in this panel are an indoor/outdoor thermometer, X-10 maxi-controller, security control panel, and a 2" LED clock. The X-10 control and the thermometer did not have any type of illumination at all, and the security panel only had status LEDs that illuminated for certain modes. The lack of light for these units made them difficult to use at night. I used LEDs to illuminate these panels using a similar method as the telephone illumination LED. I mounted the LEDs so that they shined upward, flooding the panels with light, but not too bright that they caused any problems sleeping. Since the area under the headboard is black, there are no reflections and the overall effect is that the switches, labeling, etc. are easily readable at night.
If you would like to install LEDs for your low light requirements, you will pretty much be on your own. I do not know of any source for these lighting systems in a consumer form. My designs are all custom and are built using discrete LED components from various sources, soldered on wire leads, and power cubes with dropping resistors. All parts can be purchased at Radio Shack or any other electronics shop. Also, salvaged parts from most consumer electronics will work.
With a little imagination, you can come up with some very interesting light effects that are fun and inexpensive to build, and useful and pleasant to look at.
