The Final Product
The final product of this design is nothing short of great. The light output is very usable and the 87 LED lamp only consumes 8.4 watts on the DC side when running at 12 volts, and if using a 12 V 1A transformer, the lamp will consume approximately 15 watts. You may be wondering why 87 LEDs was chosen as the "magic" number. The original plan was to have 90 LEDs, but a mistake was made in dividing up the piece of plexi-glass so that there will be 30 rows, and it ended up with 29 rows. This small error was ignored, and building went on. The difference would have probably been negligible anyways. Since this small mistake, all of the bulbs built have contained 87 LEDs.
Message from Designer Andrew
I hope you have enjoyed reading about our project. If you are weary about LED lighting technology, I have worked under this light for an extended amount of time, and found no problems. While working on the science fair backboard, I switched off all of the lights in the house and connected two light bulbs aimed at the white ceiling. The two bulbs provided plenty of light to the 10 x 15 room and allowed me to finish the backboard without using any other lights. There seems to be a notion going around that a blue light can cause headaches or fatigue. The LEDs ordered from LED shoppe are very blue, but I do not find them to cause any problems. Once my eyes adjust to the difference in color temperature, I find these lights to be just like a regular light. One other interesting side-effect of using 12 volt lamps is that they can easily be used in a power outage. One gadget that I have always loved is my "booster pack". I am not sure that this is the real name, but it is simply a plastic case with a 12 volt SLA battery inside that is used to start a car with a dead battery. Thankfully I have never used it to start my car, but I do like the fact that I can connect any 12 volt appliance to it, including these lamps to provide light during a blackout. With less than an amp of current draw, a 20aH battery would have no trouble providing at least 20 hours of operation. If you have the time, I seriously recommend you try and build one of these lamps and test it in a permanent installation. The most rewarding part of this project is switching the lights on in a room and thinking to yourself "I made that!".
Andrew
