Fresh-Out-the-Box!

Australia pulls plug on light bulbs February 21, 2007

About time there was movement to rid the world of the evil wasteful light bulbs…

An election’s looming so there’s movement in Australia- the phasing out of incandescent bulbs should be made law worldwide straight away: Bright idea? Australia pulls plug on light bulbs.

LED light bulbs would be even better- they’re nearly ready for prime time- the cost needs to go down, light output up (and dissipated) and the colour temperature moved towards red from blue, but they’re not major hurdles considering the huge advances in LEDs in the last few years. We’re not too far off with products like this and this already available for fairly modest prices.

Pad2Pad – Free PCB design software – Printed circuit boards manufacturing November 16, 2005

Pad2Pad – Free PCB design software – Printed circuit boards manufacturing

Mitsubishi Pocket™ LED DLP™ Projector June 16, 2005

This is an amazing use of LEDs.

A tiny, (pocket?) portable projector from Mitsubishi which won’t blow lamps, doesn’t get hot and doesn’t use much power.

It uses Luxeon LEDs from Lumileds.

Starting price when it’s released in July should be less than £400. As long as the room doesn’t have to be too dark I think I’ll be getting me one of these once the price drops a bit.

Some interesting LED sites… May 15, 2005

The maker of the amazing uFlex (which I bought 3 of- build photos and info to come one day, honest). George Scolaro’s great new site: “TaskLED offers a range of proprietary LED drivers and LED lighting solutions.“.
There’s some info on RV applications of George’s Luxeon LED kit from Marco Beckwith.

Some goood info on the quality of LED clusters for automotive applications from WebBike World.

A good overview here at ePanorama.

This was an interesting find- you know when an incandescent indicator bulb blows and your indicators start flashing faster to let you know that a bulb’s out? Well due to LED bulbs putting such a low load on the inidcator relay, it acts as if a bulb’s blown and flashes too fast. What you need to get round this little problem is a LED Load Equaliser

Technical LED information

• Loads of info and links on Don Klipstein’s LED Page.
• LED Information and Technical Forum
• The LED FAQ Pages
• Discussion on boat LED application, with some good info and links to voltage regulation.
• Constructing a linear Constant Current LED Lamp Dimmer.

The LED Museum

LED suppliers that do the lot

• Ultra LEDs (UK) Large range
• Forge Europa, who also have this OptiLED site for White LEDs
• Oolights (UK)
• 3dzLED (UK)– range of general LED stuff.
• Photonlight– Keyring LED torches (US).
• The LED Light US site supplying a massive range of LED products including flood lights, bricks, Luxeons, direct replacement home bulbs that will run off 120volt (they also list 240v versions for us “ferners” ;)
• Technology Associates have a good range of torches and other LED based products.

Large range of interesting LED products from Superbright LEDs (US).

• Some interesting LED stuff from The LED Light, I think I’m going to have to get a Laserpod… sounds too good to pass by:
  

  “the Laserpod splits three lasers and a load of ultraviolet LEDs through a Swarovski Crystal to generate random patterns of multicolored LED light. The Laserpod comes with two translucent plastic domes to diffuse the light, projecting swirls on their surface. But the real fun comes when you remove the dome and let the light crawl across the walls and ceiling.”

Interior LED lighting

• Fancy Lighting

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• Intalite (UK).
• 3dzLED (UK)
• Asco Lights– including the interesting looking Morpheus. I’m sure it won’t be long before sound to light versions of this type of thing start appearing.

Automotive suppliers

• Ace Parts (UK)
• Terrible website, but some ineteresting stuff from Goffy (UK).
• Massive range from LightLens (US).
• Hella
• Ready made LED tail lights for popular models from Autotoyaz (UK).
• 3dzLED (UK)
• Radiantz supply motorbike people with their wild LED requirements.
• LED Car sells array boards and other handy parts for automotive applications.
• Lightwave– all kinds of crazy automotive LED stuff (UK).
• Modworld – everything for the boy racer in ya.
• Technostalgia “manufacture high quality, LED stop lights for classic cars as well as one of a kind auto accessories”.
• www.ultrabrightleds.co.uk (Site down 15/5/05)

Angus Noble makes this futuristic LED light. Sounds great, but can’t imagine too many people are willing to pay the high cost of £50 for a torch!

How LEDs work April 13, 2004

Howstuffworks

Check out the links at the end of the article too.

LED calculator March 16, 2004

Found this handy LED calculator
Which works out the resistors needed to make sure you don’t blow stuff up…