Hello. Former CPF member for decades. Not much of a poster, but was a member there.
My mother has an antique curio cabinet. Short story: The cabinet is nothing special except it IS NOT DESIGNED FOR ANY TYPE OF LIGHTING.
After numerous tries of fairy lights, tape lights, curio cabinet light with long bulb, puck lights, she finally agreed for me to drill a hole in the top and shine my PHIXTON LED light from the top. She was thrilled with the brightness, the color, and the “hiding” of the source of the light(this is tough because the cabinet has a mirrored back wall).
The only downside to this application is the flashlight sticks up way over the top. I looked for a VERY VERY bright puck light to shine through the hole I made, but none of the puck lights are bright enough for this application.
From Project Farm, it seems the output from the PHIXTON light is about 500 lumens(low setting of the flashlight).
If I could find an LED power circuit getting power from a USB cable and a matching 500 lumen LED, I could probably build something. But the product selection and where to buy is not my field of expertise.
I do not mind destroying my Phixton for these components, except they don’t make this model anymore(red LED sidelight). So, if someone could recommend parts and a source, that would be a great benefit to me(and my mother).
Set it to 3v. Get 2 wires and the only soldering you’d need to do is solder them to an led on a star mcpcb board that is properly heatsunk. Or is that heatsinked?
Would something like this work? At 7W it should be plenty bright
I just found this on AliExpress:
LED USB 5V LED Under Cabinet Light Model cabinet Display Case Shelf Counter Lighting Caravan Camper Spot Lamp Interior lights 3W https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuPIRrg
That should work fine. You just need to set the voltage properly on the usb buck adapter.
I would start it at 3v and work up from there. In theory, you should be able to go to 4.2v
So…what I have right now is the COB LED Light Chip Bead 3W 280lm 6000-6500K 20mm.
$8 for 5 of these.
I did buy the USB Buck Boost Voltage Converter, 15W LCD Step Up Down Power Supply Module.
$18 for 2 of them.
In comparison to the COB in my Phixton flashlight:
The 20mm COB LED is about 1/3 the size of the LED in the PHIXTON.
The Phixton flashlight is just a tinge bluer than the 20mm COB I bought.
At 4.8V and .62A, the 20mm COB is about the same brightness as the PHIXTON on the LOW BEAM setting.
I do not have anything to measure the temperature of the LEDs.
But I did put cashier register heat sensitive paper over the 20mm COB and it did
change the color of the paper. In fact it stuck to the paper and when I lifted the paper the COB LED detached from the heat sink/board. That seemed weird. Actually, the heat sink/plate on the back of the LED was too hot to touch.
I have tested the 5 20mm pucks I received. They all seem to be the same brightness and color. I have a USB wall wart powering the voltage/current regulator and that seems to work pretty well at this point.
As the 20mm seems rather small, is there a source for larger COB “pucks”?
4.8v is too high. I wouldn’t take it above 4.2v. Try it at 3.8v, but up the current slowly to find your sweet spot.
Be sure you are properly heatsinking these things. As @gravelmonkey mentioned, an aluminum strip or something will help dissipate excess heat.
If it was the MCPCB (star board) that the emitter is on, that lifted out of the pill, it will need to be properly adheared back into place. It shouldn’t just lift off easily.
You can find Thermal Adhesive on Amazon. You can use that to sparingly adhere the MCPCB back into the pill, as well as adhere the COB lights to an aluminum strip.
Use the stuff sparingly. Apply it and push the 2 pieces together hard to squeeze out any excess.
The closer you can get to metal-to-metal contact the better.
ETA: If the buck adapters do not have adjustable current, you can add more cobs to make everything brighter. That’s probably your best solution. I would avoid overdriving the voltage though.
Due to the issues I have had, I due expect to do that, yes. There is a non descript Amazon glue that gets good reviews. I will use that to attach the heat sink.
