# DIY LED Flood Light Help



## SavageEye

*I am beginning to move my entire haunt lighting over to 12v power. I recently made 1W spots out of Star LEDs and they turned out awesome. They will work great for my grave yard yet, they are not powerful enough to light up my house in the vibrant color that I want.

Here is the look I am going for:









My plan would be to have 4-6 units on the ground floor and another 4-6 units on the second story. I envision the units daisy chained from one unit to the next. Here is where I get into uncharted territory...

I want to design something that uses a 10 watt RGB LED and is 12VDC that can be used for both Halloween and Christmas. This means that I am now stepping off into the RGB / DMX world which I know nothing about.

Ideally, I would like to use a housing like this and customize it to my specs:









I think I can buy a non RGB unit for around $6 - $8 a piece from China, strip the guts and replace with an LED like this:









I don't know what pieces I need to achieve this. I am also looking to build something economical initially and can be upgraded to something more robust in the future.

Can I use a simple DMX controller like this to control each string of floods (or would I need one for each light)? 









For Halloween, I'm looking for each flood to emit a purple light like in the picture, and for Christmas I am looking for each flood to be a different color.

The other question is how I design them so they can be daisy chained (perhaps via Cat5 wire)?

Well, this is what's in my head, hope someone can provide some guidance (and I am sure there are more questions)! If there is a different approach, I am open minded to suggestions.

Thanks!*


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## beaver state rich

Try Holiday Coro. I have 15 of these and they are fantastic. http://www.holidaycoro.com/RGB-Flood-Light-p/163.htm

I have gotten the floodlight housing as little as 7.99 on sale. Thus, you are under $30 per light.


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## SavageEye

Thanks Rich. I am definitely finding a lot of traction on the Christmas forums. When I decide the direction I am going, I will definitely post a tutorial.



beaver state rich said:


> Try Holiday Coro. I have 15 of these and they are fantastic. http://www.holidaycoro.com/RGB-Flood-Light-p/163.htm
> 
> I have gotten the floodlight housing as little as 7.99 on sale. Thus, you are under $30 per light.


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## Skiddy

Savage,
I have done Christmas displays for a few years now and may have a little insight for you when selecting controllers. The controller you have displayed is a very basic RBG controller in a 3 wire configuration. While this may work for what you're trying to do, it is definitely not the easiest or probably cost effective method. After running Renard and DMX controllers in various flavors, my recommendation would be to start where I eventually ended up. I spent a lot of money and time in trial and error to finally realize the new E1.31 controllers are by far the best way to go.

http://www.sandevices.com/E681info.html
Here is a controller that will allow you to output E1.31, DMX and Renard, all from the same unit. This controller will allow you to run all of your Halloween RGB floods and with a few TriAcs [ something like this http://www.renard-plus.com/ssr8.html ] added, you could control 110v lights/props or your existing 12v lighting [ with something like this http://www.renard-plus.com/dcssrhc.html ].

This setup is can be controller by a single cat5 wire from a computer to the controller or you can get a fancy as you want. I actually installed a cat5 jack on the side of my house that is wired into the network to run mine. You can easily add a wifi ethernet hub and then connect the controller to your home wifi network.

One last word on setup - this is by far the easiest controller I have ever setup. It has it's own web interface built in that allows either control on the network or from any remote location that has an internet connection.

So what kinda cost are you looking at? Assuming you have basic soldering skills - which I bet you do if you were talking about gutting and replacing LEDs - the controller can be had for $109 + $9 shipping. DC SSRs can be had here [ http://digwdf.com/store/product.php?id_product=158 ] for your 12v non-RGB led spots for 14.95 for 16 channels. Misc cables and such, my guess would be under $150.

Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about this stuff.
Skiddy


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## Haunted Spider

I went the Holiday coro route a few years back but then integrated it into a simple plug and play system so I could move the lights and modify them throughout the season. I put a whole instructable out on it if you are interested. It may give you some thoughts on the way to go or vary how you may want to proceed. I will say that the purple shade of light is really nice but not as strong from the LEDs as you would think. It will take several lights to get the vibrant color that you are looking for. I run 7 floods at my home.

Here is the instructable http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Plug-and-Play-LED-Lighting/


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## Skiddy

Nice Spider! I run a similar setup for my prop spots using RCA cables. I am toying with a setup that will allow for daisy chaining with a female RCA at each light. I'll post when I get it up and working.


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## Haunted Spider

Be careful daisy chaining. You loose current/ resistance over that distance and you will loose the brightness of your lights as well as take a good chance of overheating the small RCA cables and melting them. Small lights sure, floods, no way I would do it. Just use longer RCA cables.


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## SavageEye

Thanks guys! This is very helpful. I will keep you posted as I continue down this path.


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## SavageEye

@Haunted Spider. At one point, I was thinking of using the HolidayCoro RGB / DMX lights for my floods. I was concerned about brightness. How bright do you think they are in comparison to a single 10W RGB LED?


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## SavageEye

This is what I am considering for a setup:

Raspberry PI --> E6804 --> 10W RGB Floods

I recently (this week) downloaded Vixen 3 and need to learn how to use it.

Thoughts?


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## SavageEye

Definitely in my price range. 



Skiddy said:


> Savage,
> I have done Christmas displays for a few years now and may have a little insight for you when selecting controllers. The controller you have displayed is a very basic RBG controller in a 3 wire configuration. While this may work for what you're trying to do, it is definitely not the easiest or probably cost effective method. After running Renard and DMX controllers in various flavors, my recommendation would be to start where I eventually ended up. I spent a lot of money and time in trial and error to finally realize the new E1.31 controllers are by far the best way to go.
> 
> http://www.sandevices.com/E681info.html
> Here is a controller that will allow you to output E1.31, DMX and Renard, all from the same unit. This controller will allow you to run all of your Halloween RGB floods and with a few TriAcs [ something like this http://www.renard-plus.com/ssr8.html ] added, you could control 110v lights/props or your existing 12v lighting [ with something like this http://www.renard-plus.com/dcssrhc.html ].
> 
> This setup is can be controller by a single cat5 wire from a computer to the controller or you can get a fancy as you want. I actually installed a cat5 jack on the side of my house that is wired into the network to run mine. You can easily add a wifi ethernet hub and then connect the controller to your home wifi network.
> 
> One last word on setup - this is by far the easiest controller I have ever setup. It has it's own web interface built in that allows either control on the network or from any remote location that has an internet connection.
> 
> So what kinda cost are you looking at? Assuming you have basic soldering skills - which I bet you do if you were talking about gutting and replacing LEDs - the controller can be had for $109 + $9 shipping. DC SSRs can be had here [ http://digwdf.com/store/product.php?id_product=158 ] for your 12v non-RGB led spots for 14.95 for 16 channels. Misc cables and such, my guess would be under $150.
> 
> Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about this stuff.
> Skiddy


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## BillyVanpire

i found this video series on powering hi-power led lights, very informative and detailed.






maybe this will help


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## SavageEye

Thanks...!


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## rick4464

*Follow up*

I know its been a few years, but really interested in how you did. Any updates?


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