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LED Tube Lighting

S

sitalchauhan

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 30, 2006
Messages
244
I was intending on buying some CCFL tubes but after reading all of the horror stories about the inverters burning and even setting on fire, I have decided to get LED lighting instead.

However, I couldnt find any 12" tubes of LEDs like what CCFL's come in, in the UK.

The closest thing I could find was:
http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2273.html

If anybody knows of any LED lighting that comes in relatively long sticks, please could you post them here.

Thanks
 
Just a note, you're not going to get the same uniform light source effect with a tube of LEDs as compared to a CCFL. The LED tube is essentially going to just look like bright dots all lined up in a row, and it'll usually only face one direction, the light won't shine 360 degrees.
 
just get a ccfl kit where the inverters are placed in an aluminum casing and turn the lights off whenever you're not around.
 
ok, you have swayed me back to CCFL's now due to un uneven spread of light with LEDs :p

I would feel much safter using CCFL if I could find somewhere that sold metal cased inverters.
I found one website, but it is in america.

Does anybody know of any sites that sell metal inverters in the UK?

Also, does anybody know if it is safe to control a cold cathode using a Sunbeam Rheobus to turn the cold cathodes off? (ie lowering the voltage to 0V to turn off, then up to 12V to turn them on..)
 
sitalchauhan said:
ok, you have swayed me back to CCFL's now due to un uneven spread of light with LEDs :p

I would feel much safter using CCFL if I could find somewhere that sold metal cased inverters.
I found one website, but it is in america.

Does anybody know of any sites that sell metal inverters in the UK?

Also, does anybody know if it is safe to control a cold cathode using a Sunbeam Rheobus to turn the cold cathodes off? (ie lowering the voltage to 0V to turn off, then up to 12V to turn them on..)
Click to expand...

I would not do that. Instead, you could either use an old-fashioned switch, or add an op-amp to use as a comparator, and a relay to turn on the CCFLs.

If you're worried about fire, I would simply put the inverters in a small metal "project box" from radio shack.
 
I use my sunbeam rheobus to control my CCFL's just fine. They turn off at less than 8v though.
 
OK thats great, just what I wanted to know that it works ok.

If I do incase the plastic inverter box with a metal box, wouldnt that cause the inverter to overheat even more due to the heat being trapped inside?...

Thanks
 
Well, if you ensure the inverter has direct physical contact with the metal box then it shouldn't overheat (would work as a heatsink), if there's any air contact between them then there's a risk of it overheating.

You could take the components out of the plastic case and put them into a metal one if you can get someone to machine you one that fits.


Alternatively, you can put a spot-fan on the inverter and call it a day.
 
I've got a bank of 4 inverters that are directly cooled by a 400rpm 120mm fan. Never had an problems with them. Continuous operation of like, 2 years too.
 
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