Two home made garden lamps are faithfully lighting our home walkway, coming on at dusk and off at daybreak for one year now.
The lamps are suitably bright so as to almost eliminate the use of the outdoor floodlights except perhaps when company is expected.
The untreated wood frame of the lamps is weathering nicely. The glass block looks bright and clean and is pretty much indestructible. Interestingly, most visitors don't remark on these lamps, which might be a good thing? Others don't have to notice that I am saving money while lighting their way.
Now that the days are shorter and the lamps are coming on earlier, their glow welcomes automatically.
These lights, with the exception of the LED bulb and the glass block I have built myself at minimal cost. The power supply for the lamps and the auto turn on is being done with a reclaimed plug-in transformer unit from a very popular system around here 20 years ago called the Moonlight from Noma. I built a small rectifier/filter to improve the light quality and to improve operating efficiency.
Two short videos to give you an idea of the illumination, taken well before sunrise.
This video is the properly working light
I was impressed with my iPhone as a camera on this cold morning. In the first video, the wind is blowing strongly from behind me so the audio is pretty good. In the second, I am facing into the video so the wind noise is bad.
This light developed a regular flashing in one segment of the LED array.
Sorry about the audio! I think you can still understand?
Since the video was taken, the flashing segment has failed and is dark although the rest of the LEDs in that lamp still light.
Thanks for your interest
George
2 comments:
I don't know anything about lighting, but have to make my own led light string for a craft project. I want about 20 mixed colored lights and some to flash. Can you tell me what to buy and how to put it together? There is nothing on the market that will work. I want to use plain copper stranded wire so I can bend it easily. Thank you.
Anonymous: When you say that nothing on the market will do, just guessing, but is this because you want "some to flash"? Some color, some area, some pattern? some what? There seem to be quite a few products commercially available. Perhaps you can be more specific? Is the flashing to be variable? More details please. Surprisingly, it could get complicated quickly depending on exactly what was required. George
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