12.00 Volts to 10.00 Volts LED Bucker

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I really don't think these chip manufacturers have their act together as far as knowing what their chips consume. They are after the "12 volt market" with a design that demands 10 volts. At 10 volts, I personally cannot discern much if any lessening of brightness, but amperage (watts) above 10 volts skyrockets.

I tried a competitor, Bridgelux, at six dollars a pop and at 600% of the cost of the run of the mill chip I was sorely disappointed to see very little if any perceptible lumen difference at the same I. Increasing I resulted in heat not more lumens just like with the cheap spread.

As compared to a 5050smd plate the single 10 watt chip just blows the plate away as far as brightness and whiteness is concerned. Very much like comparing the difference between a 7 watt incandescent night light, versus a 10 watt compact spiral. I'm talking about differentials, perspective not actual light output.

What is needed in the RV industry is an authentic LED lamp. Not a conversion. Base made of black anodized aluminum, finned, special diffuser plastic lens to minimize loss of lumens and spread the area of lighting.

Rural families use their car battery and 50 watt 12-volt light bulb. They go to bed with the chickens. If heat is tolerable they may fire off a Flameneta gas lantern to cook by. Expensive to operate, a humidity producer and shoveling more coal onto sweltering temperatures. A ten watt fixture will buy them some extra hours. One sixth the amp hour consumption of an incandescent bulb never mind savings in AWG reduction needed.

Pilas, small batteries down here can cost two dollars each. Ouch! The bread winner uses the car the battery will recharge. It's an absolutely imperfect, carnival of compromises but I've yet to come up with a more cost effective solution. A neighbor just purchased an LTH ciclo profundo bateria for his lancha and it cost eqvt 148 dollars. Please don't ask about solar voltaic. A panel that costs 100 dollars in the states costs 300+ dollars down here. Oh yeah, forgot about the 70 dollar shipping charge.

The chips you bought are RAW LED chips.

They are a simple 3 x 3 "array" of White LEDs.

Basically put 3 white LED diodes in series (as you know White LEDs typically need about 3V forward voltage across them so three in series is 9V) to make one set and three sets in parallel. The modules are actually 9W...

I have several of these I have been experimenting with, while the manufacturer "claims" they are 12V I decided to use four 1A diodes in series which dropped the voltage from 12.8 to about 10V. The diodes are dropping about .7V each.

ACTUAL Current draw is about .56A or 7.2W so the diodes in series are actually dissipating a "whopping" .39W of heat or a grand total of 1.575W of heat for all four diodes.

I would HIGHLY DOUBT that ANY DC-DC switching supply or converter is going to drastically be LESS wasted power than those four diodes.

Not to mention you can often buy 100 or more 1A diodes for a buck or so.. basically costs mere pennies per diode..

Granted, you do not get any over voltage protection nor current limiting but hey.. you just can not beat the simplicity and cost of the diodes..