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  • Author Author: genebren
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Kitchen Lighting System Phase 2 - PCBs have arrived!

genebren

Previous post in this blog sequence:

Kitchen Lighting System Phase 2

Kitchen Lighting System Phase 2 - Part 2

Kitchen Lighting System Phase 2 - part 3 - Let there be (better) light!

Kitchen Lighting System Phase 2 - PCBs, Schematics and new sensor module.

 

The new PCBs have arrived and I could not wait to try out my new LED board (I soldered up the 10 new LEDs boards last night and earlier to day, so I had no blank boards left for the picture)!  Five new shiny PCB types to play with (from the upper left corner, clockwise, we have the following:

Load controller, Master controller/PIR, 4-LED driver, Light Sensor and EnOcean Transceiver board to support the load controller).

image

I was excited to try out the new 4-LED design to test out my other recent changes.  I have been working on improving the light output of the current design, attempting to further reduce the losses of the light cover/lens.  To that end, I have redesigned the cover/lens to thin it out further.  Additionally, I have added a little texture (semi-prismatic) to diffuse the light a bit. Starting in the upper left hand corner and moving clockwise, we have the earlier cover/lens, a thinned version of the cover/lens and a thinned and textured version of the cover/lens.  All three of these cover/lenses were printed with the same clear PLA filament.  The earlier version shows some yellowing of the background and a resulting attenuation of the lighting (approximately 1168 Lux @ 10").  The thinned out cover/lens yielded a higher light output (approximately 1295 Lux @ 10").  And the latest version, with the additions of a light prismatic texture, yielded a slight improvement (approximately 1348 Lux @ 10").  This was all welcomed improvements in light output, but I still wanted to to see where this would go with the new LED board.  Well, I just added connectors to one of my new boards and did a little testing.  The new LED board, with the new thinned and textured cover/lens produced a light output of 1715 Lux @ 10".  This an improvement of ~269% over the existing lighting.  Not to bad for a couple of weeks work.

imageimage

 

The new Light Pucks are coming along nicely.  Below are the new PCB (top and bottom) and the fully assembled light puck turned on and shining brightly.

imageimageimage

I still have a lot to do, assembling the new PCBs and then writing a bunch of firmware.  This has been an exciting journey up to this point, but it feels like it is going to get crazy soon.  In addition to this project, I have another exciting project getting ready, a new shop.  Since moving to Texas (almost three years ago), I have been without a real shop.  All of my tools have been sharing space in the garage with my wife's car (and almost a ton of pre-mix concrete in sacks), which makes it really difficult to do anything with my tools.  I have a bunch of prep work to do while I am waiting for my final approval from my home owners association.  All that, and my Mom is coming in to town next week to visit with us and her great grandchildren.

 

Thanks for reading along,  more to come.......

Gene

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  • in reply to shabaz

    Thanks shabaz, 3D printing has become a huge part of the work that I am doing.  I still have a couple of more cases to design and print, so there is a bit more fun down the road.  Good news, just minutes after posting this blog I received the OK from the home owners association on the project.  Things are going to get crazy.

     

    Thanks again,

    Gene

  • in reply to genebren

    That's great news! Also I hope they didn't think you'd use the workshop to fix all their future toaster problems or anything image

     

    Always exciting seeing a workshop come to life.. I wish it were here so I could try to help!

    I think the 3D printing idea works really well for lighting stuff, holding lenses in place, etc. It is hard to do with basic tools/materials.

    I'm halfway through a microscope light project and for that I'm using an LED and reflector and lens, and found it a challenge to source the right dimension pipe, etc. I really should learn 3D tools sometime.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Shabaz,

     

    I made a nice light ring for my microscope long before I had a 3D printer.  I ended up turning the housing on a simple manual lathe.  I built it out of a soft plastic (UDPE), which machines quite nicely.

    imageimageimage

    The inner bore of the light ring is a tight fit to the outer dimension of the microscope, but I also use the barlow lens (x 0.5), screwed in below the ring to help secure it in place.

     

    Good luck with your project!

    Gene