DealExtreme - Some wins, some losses...

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Trevor Wilson 15 years ago

...from my most recent purchases from DealExtreme.

The wins:

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This thing is REALLY something very good indeed. Thin, unobtrusive, nicely made and very, very bright. I compared it to an existing, 11 Watt T5 under cupboard mounted fluoro. I noted an almost 100% increase in light available in various places near the lamp in the kitchen. Current consumption was 0.7A @ 12 Volts (regulated), measured with a light meter. SWMBO really liked the warmth of the LED strip compared with the T5, along with the significantly higher light output. I reckon this guy will actually enable me to dump the

50 Watt halogens from the kitchen, as soon as I can figure out a mounting system. They need heat sinking. Nonetheless, unhesitatingly recommended.

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Well, I don't really know if this is a win just yet. I neglected to note the special Li-ion battery required. We'll see.

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This is really something very special. Excellent light output, good matching of LEDs and dead easy to use. Even comes with it's own power supply.

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Nice. Similar quality to what I pay WES 35 Bucks for.

The losses:

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Waste of money.

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450 Lumen, my arse. More like 0.1 Lumen. Looks like the driver is faulty. I'll rip it apart and see what can be done. Watch out for this one.

Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

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F Murtz 15 years ago

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Just get the batteries with charger from ebay (cheaper than dealextreme)

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Mickel 15 years ago

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It claims 16W but only used 0.7amps. It truly is magic :-)

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I have something similar I reckon it's awesome. It's so easy to carry around so you can always have it in your pocket if you go away camping or something like that. The only problem I have found is that it can jump modes. I have to work out what is lose in there.

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Trevor Wilson 15 years ago

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**In all fairness, I did current limit the thing to what _I_ considered reasonable (Damned thing comes with zero information). Perhaps, with 14 Volts and a little over an Amp up their bum, they would consume 16 Watts. I would be concerned with Pdiss and consequent life-span at those levels. With 12 Volts, limited to 0.7 Amps, the thing was mighty impressive. Significantly brighter (measured with a light meter) than an 11 Watt T5 fluoro is a fine effort.

Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

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Clifford Heath 15 years ago

How did you heatsink it? I mean, aesthetically, if you put these things in your kitchen etc...?

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Trevor Wilson 15 years ago

**I have yet to work that out, but I've noted that if I glue it to the granite, there seems to be adequate 'heat sink' that way. I figure on mounting it to a sheet of aluminium (say: 200mm X 100mm) and glue that to the underside of the cupboard. I'll perform a few experiments that allow for decent cooling and adequate SAF. Regardless of which way I go, it'll be a whole lot less obtrusive than the fluoro it will replace. Even SWMBO has suggested mounting it on stainless steel wires and hang it from the ceiling. Mounted to a small block of aluminium, it could look nice and provide decent cooling.

I have say that if you are remotely interested in LED lighting, buy one of these things. They are very, very impressive.

Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

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Mickel 15 years ago

I received one of these recently. Damn it is one really really bright LED. It easily beats my pair of 150W flood lights in the back yard. It has a couple of problem though. The first was that the light was very floody, the standard flood lights that most household have a very directional in comparison. THe second was the heat. After a couple of minutes of running the Pentium 4 cooler I had it connected to was getting too hot to touch. It would be ok I think if the fan was running but the power supply if 36V so it would be difficult.

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TonyS 14 years ago

I got myself one from DealExtreme and was also stunned by the brightness, which I think is a little deceptive because of the small surface area that outputs the light. I am using it now without a heat sink in my desk lamp for work. It runs on 11.6V DC drawing 0.5 A with a slightly lower light output, but running much cooler.

Cheers

Tony

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syd bluemountains 14 years ago

That 16W led bar sounds perfect for solar, but running on 12v batts with a constant current regulator may still be too much as batteries creep up to 14v. Need an inverter from 12v batts. Whats the best way to drive this direct from batts without blowing or wasting too much power or getting complicated? (no heatsink at 500ma 11.65v sounds good!)

Maybe using one of these may do the trick!

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TonyS 14 years ago

Maxim has a whole range of LED current drivers as well:

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DealExtreme - Some wins, some losses...

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