Ever since I first came across this 300 LED Ribbon Light, 1200 Lumens . I have been thinking about what I could do with it.
At $9.90 for a strip of 300 LEDs’ that works out to a little over $0.03 each - my kind of price. Granted, they are only 4 lumens each but we will make up for that in numbers. What I am going to mod is a 38 watt florescent work light. I have had these lights for years and they are really great. They run cool, give off no glare and are really nice to work with. My only gripe with them is that the replacement bulb is pricey, about $20.00. I thought I had one laying around with a blown ballast and bad bulb, but I think I finally threw it away. Why is it EVERY time I throw something out, I end up wanting it back. So instead of converting a blown light to LED, what I ended up doing was adding LED functionality to a working florescent. The end result is a light that works either way, florescent running on 120V AC or LED running on 12V DC - Brick of off the car power port. Here are the pics.
First up is the spool of strip lighting that I received from FastTech.com
Next is the florescent light that I am going to mod.
This is a closeup of a section of the strip. After every 3 LEDs there is a section that can be cut with a pair of scissors. When you do this, there are copper solder pads on either side of the cut so that you can easily apply power. I am guessing that the entire length of LEDs are configured in a series - parallel circuit, with each 3 leds in each section in series and then each section in parallel with each other.
Various stages of disassembly
I had to install a 12V port for the LEDs, I salvaged this socket from and old 12V jump starter that I had.
I forgot to take pictures of the next step, but that part was easy. What I did was cut some strips off the spool that were 4 sections long. Each section had 12 LEDs. One of the best things about these LED strips is that the LEDs are mounted on self-adhesive back with double side 3M adhesive tape. All I had to do is peal off the protective backing and stick the strips to the light. The next step is to wire all 10 strips in parallel.
I want to be able to use this light in the van so I needed a 12V driver. Even though the van is a 12V system, I know that a fully charged battery is being charged at around 14.4V. That might be too much for the LEDs so I used 12V driver that I had left over from My $2.24 triple emitter Mag Mod HERE
The driver is left over from an M16 light that I used for the Mag Mod.
The driver contains 4 diodes in a bridge configuration, so this light could actually run on AC or DC
Luckily the driver soldered directly to the 12V socket.
The light wired up with the original florescent in place.
The finished light and running off a 12V VCR battery pack
How did I figure $3.96 for this mod? I used 120 of the 300 LEDs on the strip. The strip cost $9.90 as FastTech.com, so 120/300 x $9.90 = $3.96. CHEAP and fun, now we are ready for the Blizzard! 480 Lumens ready
