Here are some photos:
Looking at them from top, left to right and then bottom, left to right:
The first photo is one of the LEDs that I use. They are made by LEDengin
LED Engin
and I buy them from Mouser, this one is part # LZ4-40B200 which means it emits blue light at 460 nm and is mounted on a "star board" and with all 4 LED chips connected in series. All of the LZ4 modules are called 10 watt by LEDengin, but the blue and white LZ4s are closer to 15 watt if they are driven at their maximum rated current of about 1 amp. The 2 different colors of red LZ4 LEDs have a lower forward voltage and so are closer to 10 watts at 1 amp.
The second and third photos shows a heat sink, a heat sink with an LED mounted on it and a power supply that I use to drive this LED. These LEDs cannot be used unless they are mounted to something to take away the heat that they produce. The LED here is not an LZ4, it is an LZ1 that has a lower output and also this one emits UV at 360 nm; I use it for photocuring acrylic resins. The power supply in the photo tries to deliver a constant current of 700 ma and will increase its voltage up to 12 volt to do this. I always use constant current power supplies in my LED lighting designs.
The 4th photo shows a spool of 22 gauge, stranded, silver plated, teflon jacketed copper wire that I use for making electrical connections to the LEDs. The wire connected to the LED in photos 2 & 3 is 18 gauge wire that I was originally using before I decided the 18 gauge was a bit too big for attaching directly to the LED's star board. Teflon jacketed wire is a bit difficult to strip, I found that the best device for this was a cheap stripper shown in the photograph that is carefully adjusted to size.
The 5th photo shows a focusing lens. I don't use it for my uv light because I place that very close to the resin that I am curing. I do use these lenses for my plant lights, they will tightly focus the light from the led so that the lights can be placed many feet away from the plants. These lenses come from LEDenging and are available in 12, 23 and 35 degree beam spread.
Mounting the LED star board directly to the heat sink as you see in photos 2 & 3 doesn't give it much protection from the elements and mechanical damage so in photos 6through 10 I show the type of housing I built for my plant light LEDs.
In photo 6 you see the construction of a copper housing to provide protection for the LEDs. At the left is a billet of 1/8" thick copper 1.5"x3". In the middle photo holes have been drilled to mount the billet and star board to the heat sink. In the right photo a protective ring made from a piece of 1&1/4 inch copper tube about 3/8 inch high has been soldered to the billet.
In photo 7 on the left you see a copper billet with protective ring mounted to a heat sink and on the right you see the same but with an LED mounted inside. In phto 8 you see a side view and in photo 9 you see the addition of a focusing lens. In photo 10 you see a 1&1/4 inch copper pipe coupling added to protect also the focusing lens.
The focusing lens can be glued in place but what I did was to place a flashlight "lens" (more properly called a window) that just matched the inside diameter of the copper coupling on top of the focusing lens followed by an o-ring and that followed by another short ring of 1&1/4" pipe all placed inside the coupling and held in place with set screws. With this method I can easily remove the focusing lens to get a different beam spread.
My homemade LED lights, don't do this at your home.
Linear Mode
