Cheap lighting accessories found at walmart

T

TEMM

Gawd
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Jul 8, 2001
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Last night i went to the automotive section of walmart, and in the ricer section i happened upon packs of 2 LED pods. Each pod contains 2 colored leds, i bought blue. The best part about them is they have everything built in to run off a 12V power supply, so they are easy enough to use in a PC. I hooked one pod up to a 12v line last night to check it out and they are SUPER bright. They cost 12$ canadian or probably about 7-8 bucks USD.
 
yup, they are the led's you can buy to mount where your windshield squirters are. How hard were they to get out of the housing? or did you just leave it in.
 
Ill be taking a stab at ripping the housing off tonight. Ill post pics and exactly how has it was then :p
 
at a local walmart I picked up a 4 pack of blue leds prewired for 12volts (you can feel the resistor under some heat shrink) - each led has about a meter of wire attached and they are fricking bright when hooked up to 12volts

they didn't come in a housing like the wiper blade ones - just clean and ready to install

it was like $10 CDN which is about half the price of a local electronics parts store (which wouldn't come with the preinstalled resistor and wire)

I was pretty surprised at walmart's ricer section - quite the selection
 
i was heavy into the import scene last year b/c i got 2 integras for hobby cars to work on. I didnt rice them out, but i made them fast as hell then sold one. Any who, you'll notice a large number of devices and lighting al ready to hook up to a 12v source, for lighting behind a side window in a case, that rope light attached around the perimter is pretty nice. you cant see anything but an even glow.

Also, they have 8" neon tube that pulse to the beat of music. i modified a comp speaker to sound with the hdd light, and set it super low in volume (too low to hera outside case but enogh to vibrate the speaker coil). i then opened that light tube sensor and glued the small comp speaker directly to the bass sensor on the tube light. Anytime my hdd spoke or thought, it was like a lightstick rave....hehe.
 
Yeah, you'll be suprised at the number of mod stuff that you can get a Walmart. I usually pick up some weird stuff for mods there.
 
TEMM said:
Last night i went to the automotive section of walmart, and in the ricer section i happened upon packs of 2 LED pods. Each pod contains 2 colored leds, i bought blue. The best part about them is they have everything built in to run off a 12V power supply, so they are easy enough to use in a PC. I hooked one pod up to a 12v line last night to check it out and they are SUPER bright. They cost 12$ canadian or probably about 7-8 bucks USD.
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Got my blue CCF from the auto section there...

MD
 
I was actually thinking about getting one of the strobe lights.... they're like 15 bucks CAD
 
How is that cheaper than a sub $1 LED and a single sub $1 resistor?

Does it come with something to make it more useful? No soldering I guess...
 
When radioshack sells a single blue led for 4 bucks, and RadioShack is the ONLY place to buy electronics components like that, yes it is very much cheapers. the resistors also do not cost "sub 1 dollar". Maybe they do per unit, but i dont want to buy a 5$ package of resistors to do 4 lights. And before you say mail order electronics, the shipping usually ends up making them cost more than is reasonable before they arrive.

Factor in not having to solder up the resistors, 12 bucks for 4 prewired leds is a bargain in my eyes.
 
Ah OK. I buy all my electronics at a locally run electronics/surplus store...I only goto to Radioshack if no on else has it...
 
TEMM said:
When radioshack sells a single blue led for 4 bucks, and RadioShack is the ONLY place to buy electronics components like that, yes it is very much cheapers. the resistors also do not cost "sub 1 dollar". Maybe they do per unit, but i dont want to buy a 5$ package of resistors to do 4 lights. And before you say mail order electronics, the shipping usually ends up making them cost more than is reasonable before they arrive.

Factor in not having to solder up the resistors, 12 bucks for 4 prewired leds is a bargain in my eyes.
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While their leds are considerable more expensive than regular electronics stores, their resistors are fairly cheap. Last I checked it was 49 cents for a 5 pack. Though I haven't been to radio shack in a while so I can't say for sure.
 
TEMM said:
RadioShack is MUCH more expensive here in canada...
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You guys got Walmarts there?!?!

Im sorry, I apoligize for all Americans that such a place was allowed to expand into your country
 
Steel Chicken said:
You guys got Walmarts there?!?!

Im sorry, I apoligize for all Americans that such a place was allowed to expand into your country
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What are you talking about? You can find alot of mod stuff there! :D
 
You can get the same LED Rocker switches found online at some places for $5 at Wallmart and not have to pay shipping. I have gotten so much stuff from Walmart the past month for my current project.
 
In some of the smaller cities in Canada you don't have much of a choice besides Radio Shack for electronics unfortunately - where I am in Winnipeg there are luckily a few other good electronics stores but the cheapest of them was still $4 CDN for blue LEDs the last time I checked

I have taken professional soldering courses and used to do a lot of circuit board repair soldering and electronic wiring soldering for my job so I don't mind having to do the soldering and wiring myself but when I can get the LED's cheaper pre-wired and ready to go then I say it is a pretty good deal -- heh even if it means going into Walmart...
 
UPDATE:

I Got around to trying to remove the housing on one of the pair, and it proved extremely difficult. I broke the solder between the resister and the pair of leds. Nothing a bit of new solder wont fix though. The units consist of a pair of leds 5mm & a 3mm led, wires in series with a single resister. They are hot glued into the pod, which makes them extremely difficult to remove (but not impossible). the pods clear outer casing is easy enough to remove though.
 
for 15 bucks, i know a guy (found on ebay) sell you 20 bright blue LEDs and 20 resistors, these make them 12v and are tiny, easy to hide. in case anyone needs a bunch i can give you his email
 
cut said:
for 15 bucks, i know a guy (found on ebay) sell you 20 bright blue LEDs and 20 resistors, these make them 12v and are tiny, easy to hide. in case anyone needs a bunch i can give you his email
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Yea i could use his email as well.
 
i will look it up for u guys later tonight, have to go into my paypal history.

by the way, i payed him off ebay- he is trustable
 
Hey does anybody have a good pic of these Walmart LED's???
Be nice to see them in action..Can someoene post a pic .plezzze
 
here is a comparison vs an intellimouse explorer with lights on in the computer room - the picture doesn't really do it justice though - you can almost use the damned thing as a flashlight when you turn the lights out

led.jpg
 
and here is a comparison with the lights in the room turned off - shows a little better the brightness of the led

led2.jpg
 
Another vote for the Hong Kong Ebay guy. I bought 10 blue and 10 red LED's from him, and they came with 20 free resistors, and shipping was free. They arrived 7 days after payment was made. Very high quality LED's, highly recommended! :D

which reminds me, I'm out of blue LED's.....
 
50 Leds for 8 bucks and no shipping.... with free resistors.... wow how can this guy make any money?
 
lsdiodes is a good place for LED's and resistors. Cheap prices, good selection and $2 shipping to anywhere in the world.
 
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