Building A Monster Floodlight Out Of Scrap

When the apocalypse comes, we want [Justin] on our team! He made a hefty 400 W work light out of four 100 W LEDs mounted to a giant, aluminum slab-like heat sink he had lying around. He manufactured a diffuser for the LEDs by cutting down what appeared to be a old broken fluorescent light fixture’s cover, with side plates bolted into place for good measure. [Justin] does a lot of metalwork in his projects, and you can see it the precision with which he bolts the various parts together into a rather slick assembly.

The LEDs run off 110 V, and [Justin] soldered one of those white iPhone USB chargers in to power four small fans that are mounted on the heat sink fins backing up the LEDs. Then he mounted a ball joint onto the underside so the thing could be pointed wherever, with the other end of the joint attached to what might be the tripod from a standing work light.

Now all he needs is a control system, like this arcade button workshop light or this fully controllable workshop lighting rig.

29 thoughts on “Building A Monster Floodlight Out Of Scrap

      1. The heat output is insane, I have a “100w” module that will hit 80c in under 15 seconds if it is not strapped to a hefty heat sink.

        The light quality is also terrible. The drivers on those “driverless” LEDs have no filtering on the output so the light intensity flickers at 120Hz. Under some conditions (slow shutter speeds and low framerates) they can be used for filming but otherwise they cause rolling bands of light and dark, for high frame rate filming they just cause an obnoxious strobe as seen here: strobe

        They can be fed DC directly to eliminate the flicker but it must be at a reduced voltage. Giving them rectified and filtered mains (about 170VDC) lets out the magic smoke pretty quickly.

    1. Did you also know that those crap American PSUs also blow up all the time?

      They are only crap if you’re ignoring the fact the LED/PSU is rated for American 110V and you’re ignoring that it is being supplied 220/240V from the UK socket that it is being plugged into….

      Instead, if he had two LED modules in series, then it’ll last longer that a few milliseconds. There maybe some excess power to get rid of though, or adding a third module just in case… maybe a ballast resistor set for the two modules?.
      Also an American PSU survive if there is a switch on the back to switch off the voltage doubler, or a power factor correction SMPS (Acts as a step-down and a PFC in one) is installed before the filter cap and primary-side SMPS.

      Thus neither are crap, only the person attempting to operate them incorrectly is crap (OK, maybe in a state of learning, unless they just don’t learn)

      1. I feel like it is worth pointing out that the video that you are condemning was done as a joke. This can be inferred from the narrator referring to the LED as a “Led”, the soldering being performed by holding the iron in his fist and stabbing the tabs, the resistors added to the underside of the unit the provide the fireworks, the comment about opening an eBay case and finally the video’s description stating that it is a set-up.

    1. Or whatever source you have driving a mechanically coupled motor/generator set to convert that to the voltage you need, WWII dynamotor style. Or a whopping big joule thief arrangement if you have the parts, post-apocalypse.

    2. I think a treadmill might be easier than getting the zombies onto stationary bikes. Thanks for making me realize my zombie pyrolyzer was a way-overthought zombies-to-energy approach.

    3. Elon Musk in-home solar!

      Second time I mentioned him now in the last hour, WTF is going on, I seem possessed by the PR ghost of EM.
      Mind you I do see more and more solar panels on roofs in my direct surroundings, it seems to be taking off alright. Although in my area they are not related to Musk though, but the point is that if you got solar and the battery packs coming with it you are good to go

  1. 200% pure Chinesieum crap –These flicker so bad I felt sick for over an hour after using them on a similar build.
    I’ve never had a problem with light flicker until I met these. The LEDs are pure garbage! Big Clive has a video on how to reduce flicker with a cap but it didn’t look too promising… or safe.

    1. These are mostly flicker fee I have tested some. There is a capacitor on board to reduce it. I haven’t seen him test these particular ones that are advertised as flicker free.

      1. The ones I tried were also advertised as flicker free.

        They are flicker free IF you have zero motion under them. If you wave your hand in front of them and it is like a stop motion animation.

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