LEDs and Corian

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mchurchf
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 7:55 pm

LEDs and Corian

Post by mchurchf »

Has anyone used super white 3528 LED's for lipothanes? I usually get 5050 but saw these on Ebay and was wondering if they are brighter. Another question I have is has anyone tried candlestone corian for lipothantes? Too many choices

Eagle55
Posts: 788
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 8:44 pm

Re: LEDs and Corian

Post by Eagle55 »

If I am correct, the 3528 is on the lower level of light output but are an excellent choice for lithophanes. The 5050 are a good deal brighter and I think is what I used in my first litho box but the ones I got were actually divided into three "white" leds in one unit instead of a red, green and blue. With that arrangement you could choose to light one "spot" in each chip or two spots or three spots. If you wanted a white light with the RGB colored strips you would have to light the red, blue and green to equal white. Yes there are many choices however on eBay they are all very economical to buy some of several. You will in most cases be better off to order directly from China but once you have a varied stock you can pick what is best for each project until you get a feel for how to choose. Same with power supplies. I typically pay $3-$5 for a 12 power supply (plug in block type) and even get a surplus of them that come with some of the CCTV camera that I use. I never use them when I install the cameras, so between buy 30 in a box and getting another 20 or 30 installing a camera system or two I keep a good stock of .5 amp and 1 amp power supplies which do fine for litho projects. You may even want to get some colored "RGB" led strips in your assortment as they are used a lot for Acrylic bottom lit projects as well as special litho boxes. I just did a litho box for the Ireland based music group "Chvrches" that I equipped with the electronics to flash, strobe, pulse the various colors and use a IR remote control. I would add in that I will be using a RF remote in future versions of this because of the simplification to not have to have a hole in your wood box for the IR signal to get into the sensor.

Just for reference don't listen to the bright, super bright etc terminology. If you can find the lumens out put you can generally go by the following number scale.

3528 are generally the lower end of the light ouput
5050 "brighter"
5630 almost good for lighting work areas, a little bright for lithos in my opinion
7020 again good area lighting but really bright (need to start looking closely at current requirements of these and the 5630, they will be getting warmer and usually come on rigid aluminum substrates for the cooling qualities )

As a general rule the higher the number the higher the light output. Also, don't be afraid to order from China. I'm a customer of Rockler and will always be for certain things but when they want to sell me 15 ft of led for $120 and I can buy them from China for $12 including shipping then I am going to do so. No offense intended to Rockler and other wood working suppliers who need to make a profit, I just have to cut a few profits out in order for me to have some :) It all comes from China so its not a matter of "buy American", we don't make them LOL (get ready for the flamers on that statement, yes I know it is our technology but we sold out for the profits so let the money and the words fly)

I'll try to post the pics of the Chvrches litho box that I did last week.

Roger

ps I haven't used the corian color that you mentioned but have used glacier white and champagne. I prefer the mellower color of champagne but last time I went to buy it glacier white is the only thing I could find easily. All of them do well but have slightly different effects. Just make sure that what ever you get has semi translucency. I got a bone color in large supply of 1/4" and though I had hit the mother lode for lithos but it turned out it was an opaque version of the color and was useless for lithophanes.
CNC Shark HD ~ Control Panel 2.0 ~ Windows 7 & XP
Located in West Tennessee near the Tennessee River
http://www.eaglecarver4.com

mchurchf
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 7:55 pm

Re: LEDs and Corian

Post by mchurchf »

Good info and i appreciate it. Off to the garage i go

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