Step one. Bought the van.
Hello Everybody, First post. I camp a lot in tents but after spending three days straight in a tent in the rain at Dolly Sods I swore I'd make a change. Here it is. Bought it Wednesday. Dro...
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Disco Lights
After finishing up with the solar panels I wanted the next project to just be for fun so decided to add a Red-Green-Blue LED strip. It has a controller that allows different effects so I'm calling them Disco Lights. And just to clear this up early on, Yes I lived through the Disco Era and had a blast. Owned a bunch of polyester shirts with the big pointed collars that you could never quite get the sweat smell out of after spending the night dancing.
Before installing the lights I'll have to do some disassembly to the penthouse trim. This is the trim piece that covers the front edge of the roof cut.
Here are the two lower brackets for the penthouse roof front hold down clamps. To allow for the bolts that stick up the top trim piece has extra room underneath it.
This is the bottom trim piece. It also has to be removed. It's held in place by a series of screws.
And the bolts for the lower brackets.
Here's the trim pieces now out of the way.
How it looks with the bottom trim piece removed.
The LEDs come as a flexible strip on a roll. The small white box is the LED controller. Runs off 12 volts. It also comes with an infrared remote. These cost about $15 on ebay.
The plug on the controller is this standard size female barrel connector. Search through old wall-wart transformers and you should find a match. Cut off the plug.
This and the next several projects are all electrical and for testing purposes I needed a 12 volt benchtop power supply. Here's what I used. It's the power supply from a old computer. There are several tutorials on the internet for converting most any computer power supply into a benchtop supply like this. It's fairly easy and besides costing next to nothing these types of power supplies can crank out a lot of well regulated watts. I wondered what use negative 12 volts is. Turns out going from +12 to -12 gives 24 volts.
Mount the controller on what used to be the top of the roof. There is room under the top trim piece for the controller.
Need to run wires up to the controller from the main fuse panel. Drill a hole and add a grommet for the wiring through the roof near the front left corner of the penthouse reinforcement metal work.
Install the wiring to the controller and add a on/off switch to the bottom trim piece.
To protect the LED strip I'm using a 1/2" square "Impact-resistant Polycarbonate Square Tube" that I bought from McMaster-Carr. The strip easily slips inside the tube.
The flexible LED strip can be safely cut every so many inches at one of these marks.
I cut the LED strip so it runs the length of the metal ledge for the penthouse top.
To hold the square tube in place I used these rare earth magnets secured to the tube with VHB tape.
Since the tube is laying on the metal ledge I only had to add one magnet every foot. The magnet holds the tube to the inside edge.
The magnets are strong enough to cause the square tube to snap back in place if pulled away and released.
Plug the light strip into the controller.
Give it a test.
Not the same as a lighted dance floor but still fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LFnpZ6VUCs&feature=youtu.be
I need to add a soundtrack to the video. Maybe a little Donna Summers.
After finishing up with the solar panels I wanted the next project to just be for fun so decided to add a Red-Green-Blue LED strip. It has a controller that allows different effects so I'm calling them Disco Lights. And just to clear this up early on, Yes I lived through the Disco Era and had a blast. Owned a bunch of polyester shirts with the big pointed collars that you could never quite get the sweat smell out of after spending the night dancing.
Before installing the lights I'll have to do some disassembly to the penthouse trim. This is the trim piece that covers the front edge of the roof cut.
Here are the two lower brackets for the penthouse roof front hold down clamps. To allow for the bolts that stick up the top trim piece has extra room underneath it.
This is the bottom trim piece. It also has to be removed. It's held in place by a series of screws.
And the bolts for the lower brackets.
Here's the trim pieces now out of the way.
How it looks with the bottom trim piece removed.
The LEDs come as a flexible strip on a roll. The small white box is the LED controller. Runs off 12 volts. It also comes with an infrared remote. These cost about $15 on ebay.
The plug on the controller is this standard size female barrel connector. Search through old wall-wart transformers and you should find a match. Cut off the plug.
This and the next several projects are all electrical and for testing purposes I needed a 12 volt benchtop power supply. Here's what I used. It's the power supply from a old computer. There are several tutorials on the internet for converting most any computer power supply into a benchtop supply like this. It's fairly easy and besides costing next to nothing these types of power supplies can crank out a lot of well regulated watts. I wondered what use negative 12 volts is. Turns out going from +12 to -12 gives 24 volts.
Mount the controller on what used to be the top of the roof. There is room under the top trim piece for the controller.
Need to run wires up to the controller from the main fuse panel. Drill a hole and add a grommet for the wiring through the roof near the front left corner of the penthouse reinforcement metal work.
Install the wiring to the controller and add a on/off switch to the bottom trim piece.
To protect the LED strip I'm using a 1/2" square "Impact-resistant Polycarbonate Square Tube" that I bought from McMaster-Carr. The strip easily slips inside the tube.
The flexible LED strip can be safely cut every so many inches at one of these marks.
I cut the LED strip so it runs the length of the metal ledge for the penthouse top.
To hold the square tube in place I used these rare earth magnets secured to the tube with VHB tape.
Since the tube is laying on the metal ledge I only had to add one magnet every foot. The magnet holds the tube to the inside edge.
The magnets are strong enough to cause the square tube to snap back in place if pulled away and released.
Plug the light strip into the controller.
Give it a test.
Not the same as a lighted dance floor but still fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LFnpZ6VUCs&feature=youtu.be
I need to add a soundtrack to the video. Maybe a little Donna Summers.
