Just thought I'd stir up the conversation...
You simply can't do much better in the category of "amusing your wife" than building an LED undersofa kit, that's for sure.
So - how about the subject of powering the LED's?
AC works fine (they'll self-rectify
). BUT...
Wire them in series until the voltage divides to a proper "per-LED" level, or use a transformer and wire them all in parallel?
I definitely advocate using a transformer... but of course that can be expensive, and for a few pennies more you could build a whole formal rectifier/power supply...
...a sofa-glow kit probably wouldn't be worth the serious effort... OK, well, you know it would, but you might find yourself committed - and I don't mean "to the project", I mean "to an asylum". No chick will be impressed with you if she finds out you star-trek-geeked up a home-made power supply.
Ah - alternative solution - buy a cheap AC/DC converter and wire it to a simple set of bus-bars?
If you really wanted to build such a thing - I ordered several packs of LED's from Ebay... don't remember the seller's name, but they were tremendously cheap - packets of 50 or 100 or something - they actually
shipped from Hong Kong, and shipping was remarkably cheap. Just arrived in an envelope, like they were mailed USPS. Pretty remarkable, arrived quick, cheap... check it out.
Just thought I'd stir up the conversation...
You simply can't do much better in the category of "amusing your wife" than building an LED undersofa kit, that's for sure. :p
So - how about the subject of powering the LED's?
AC works fine (they'll self-rectify :cool: ). BUT...
Wire them in series until the voltage divides to a proper "per-LED" level, or use a transformer and wire them all in parallel?
I definitely advocate using a transformer... but of course that can be expensive, and for a few pennies more you could build a whole formal rectifier/power supply...
...a sofa-glow kit probably wouldn't be worth the serious effort... OK, well, you know it would, but you might find yourself committed - and I don't mean "to the project", I mean "to an asylum". No chick will be impressed with you if she finds out you star-trek-geeked up a home-made power supply.
Ah - alternative solution - buy a cheap AC/DC converter and wire it to a simple set of bus-bars?
If you really wanted to build such a thing - I ordered several packs of LED's from Ebay... don't remember the seller's name, but they were tremendously cheap - packets of 50 or 100 or something - they actually [i]shipped[/i] from Hong Kong, and shipping was remarkably cheap. Just arrived in an envelope, like they were mailed USPS. Pretty remarkable, arrived quick, cheap... check it out. :cool: