# Finally replaced all LED Floods



## RandalB (Jun 8, 2009)

Seems like the Chinese flood light sellers finally fixed the problems with those color changing floods of theirs.

Bought 5 of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-RGB-LED...ll_Fixtures&hash=item2a2f43c82a#ht_1985wt_907
Pleased as heck with them. Colors are right, other functions like flash, strobe and dim work. Best of all: They remember the color and mode they are set to when you shut off the power! Buying another 5 and I should be good for several years. Place them in the grave yard, walk around and set the colors/modes. 12v and waterproof...

RandalB


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## niblique71 (Dec 2, 2009)

Link doesn't seem to work ;(


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

Search ebay for:

RGB-LED-Garden-Flood-Light-Lamp-Spotlight-12V

And you'll find them.


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## RandalB (Jun 8, 2009)

Sorry about that, fixed it. Tons of sellers with them but I know the ones from these guys work properly. $19.99 with free shipping is also nice. 

RandalB


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## Lunatic (Oct 3, 2006)

Those are real nice RB! 
This might be my first step into converting my lights over to LED. 
I really don't want to build any and they are multi color. That's awesome! 
Thanks for sharing the info.

I'm thinking these are plenty bright enough. How well do they light up a gravestone?


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## Copchick (Apr 10, 2012)

Ooo I likey! How is the lighting though? Is it as much as the non-LED flood lights? Another nice thing I'm sure, is that they don't get freakin' hot like the other floods. May be a good investment for me.


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## Turbophanx (Jun 30, 2008)

They each have their own wall plug, or they wire to a controller?


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

Those are the 12 volt DC versions, no power supply.

Just picked up a dozen on Amazon for $13.59 + $0.50 shipping

Amazon.com: 10w Waterproof RGB Color Changing Outdoor LED Flood Light 12v + Remote Control: Musical [email protected]@[email protected]@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/[email protected]@[email protected]@416TvnWjq-L

There are square versions of these with AC power for around $17.00 on Amazon


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## billman (May 3, 2006)

Would these work with a DMX controller?


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

billman said:


> Would these work with a DMX controller?


These have there own controller built-in and are meant to be radio controlled from the remote. You'd have to hack them and remove the internal controller and wire directly to a DMX light controller board.


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## RandalB (Jun 8, 2009)

They are 10w so they are plenty bright, but they have a 3 stage dimmer function that gives you some control over that. One of them was plenty bright enough to light the whole deck of a 22' pontoon boat red for night fishing. 

As far as controlling them, any relay board for 12v would work to turn on and off, accessing the functions via DMX? Not a clue. 

At max output they pull around 800ma, so a 12v wall wart with that output or higher should work. I plan on using a PC power supply and I made a portable battery box (2x 12v 5AH wired in parallel) with RCA connector panel for 4 lights for distance use. 

These will get warm but not ignition temp hot, the instructions state they are waterproof but recommends not submerging them, so they should be OK in the rain and dew for a lawn display....

I've used other versions of these and their big drawback was the loss of setting on power down... It's the only reason I haven't bought a batch before now. I had the 120v rectangle ones, and I've never had a problem other than the power down issue. 

Homey, I'd be interested if you have any info on DMX hacking these babies...

HTH,
RandalB


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## Hauntmaster1 (Jan 16, 2012)

Not an electrician so I'm confused with the 12v adapter needed. Could you essentially wire 5 lights into one adapter and have that plugged into an AC outlet? Or would you need an adapter for every light? Any links to proper adapters would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks!


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

Hauntmaster1 said:


> Not an electrician so I'm confused with the 12v adapter needed. Could you essentially wire 5 lights into one adapter and have that plugged into an AC outlet? Or would you need an adapter for every light? Any links to proper adapters would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!


Each lamp will draw over 0.8 Amps at full brightness so yes but you'd need
a 12 volt supply capable of 5 x 0.8 Amps = 4 Amps minimum. An old computer power supply would work fine. Kinda hard to find a wall wart (AC adapter) big enouigh to handle a 4 amp draw. You'd want a little more capacity anyway so the supply doesn't over heat.


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

RandalB said:


> Homey, I'd be interested if you have any info on DMX hacking these babies...
> 
> HTH,
> RandalB


You'd have to determine first if the internal controller can be removed or bypassed, then determine if the rgb elements are common anode or common cathode driven.

Then it just a matter of getting a corresponding common anode or common cathode driven 3 channel DMX led control board to drive them. 
You need one channel for each of the RGB elements.

I've seen the 3 channel boards less than $15 on Ebay which could drive several of these in parallel or get a bigger 27 channel board ($60) to drive 9 of them independantly.


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## typoagain (Feb 27, 2012)

10W led will commonly have a max light output of around a old-style 75W-100W light.
BUT that is full on white light. If you just have on the red par, for example, you can expect to get a lot less light. More like a 30W incandescent bulb. If you want to get light output the neighborhood of the old PAR 150W lights you need to look at a 40W led flood.

One thing that many people doe is to use more floods and place them closer so the lower light output does not matter, plus you can better direct your ligh output.

Unless you are trying ti wash a wall or flood a complete yard you might just be happy with a couple of the 10w.

For the price, you can get one and play around with it. For a single flood you can find an old 1W wallwart to use for testing.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

I think you mean '1A' - as each of these lamps reportedly pulls about 800mA or 0.8A.

As for light output, I have some of the older ones rated at '3W' - who knows how inflated that is. They have a 4 step dimmer, but for general party / ambient light use, I don't ever turn them off the low setting. That is one good thing about the haunt - generally the lower/dimmer the light, the scarier it is.


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

*Final Testing of 12 Volt LED Floods*

Ok, got all my floods today fresh off the slooooow boat from China.

More than half of them had water in them...not around them...inside the casings! One had an led element bouncing around loose inside along with it's mounting screws.

I twisted the lids off and and got to work drying them out and re-mounting the one loose element.

They all work fine now (saved me the trouble and time of trying to get a replacement from China).

First thing I noticed was the lucite fisheye lens that is supposed to spread the flood effect. They are ok for single colors except for white. The edge of the lens distorts the color mix and you still see red/green/blue lines around the outside edge. I took out the fisheyes and decided to flip them over so the flat side was out. This took care of the color mixing/prism effect and still had plenty of flood width.

Another thing I tested was the power supply requirements. They will work on a 12 Volt AC or DC supply and the DC is diode polarity protected (you can wire it backwards and it works fine). So now I can use my spare malibu low voltage AC lighting supplies to run several of these at a time.

There is no real strobe effect as mentioned.

You get:

1. steady on with three stages of brightness for any color. 
2. slow flash from one color to the next in a repeating cycle.
3. fast flash from one color to the next in a repeating cycle.
4. slow fading from one color to the next in a repeating cycle.
5. fast fading from one color to the next in a repeating cycle.
6. off


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## mroct31 (Nov 10, 2007)

A video would do wonders for this thread! Just saying.


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## ScaryLane (Jun 3, 2013)

If your looking for an flood RGB LED light, try this true flood for about the same price:
Amazon.com: Colorful 10w RGB LED Flood Light Landscape Lamp + Remote Control: Home [email protected]@[email protected]@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/[email protected]@[email protected]@51XEIa04sGL
It does not have the "rings" of light since it does not use a lens. (Just a true flood light.)

I've use both types of housing and don't like the effect the lens has on the lighting a set or prop.


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