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xnorit:public:summary:ledlightsceiling

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Ledlights ceiling

After moving to my new address, I decided to design my own custom led-lights with in-wall touchscreen monitor for control. This by connecting them to a wired Xnorduino communication bus.

<WRAP center round info 60%> Note:

  1. The camera strobing effect from the LED-drivers, is not visible to the human eye!
  2. This video was deliberately captured vertically!
  3. Yes, the white cabinet with strange LED lights inside contains the server hosting this webpage.

</WRAP>

Preparation

Cabling

A cat6 communication cable cable was installed across the ceiling, prior of finalizing the room. As has been makred, in the left image below. In the right image, the cable can be seen.

Power supply

An additional power supply was required, as each of both LED lights can draw up to 1.5A at 24V (36 watt), surpassing the 1A max current of cat6. I therefore decided to position all connection points behind the wooden pilar in an attempt to hide the cable mess. A custom cover was designed using FreeCad and 3D printed on my Prusa MK4 afterwards. See images below.

PCB

PCB design

A custom LedDriver PCB was designed using KiCad. The PCB contains 8 individually controllable LED drivers, of which:

  • 4 are used for 6500K cold white LED's with a 95% CRI
  • 4 are used for 1800K warm white LED's with a 90% CRI

The PCB has some extra optional expansion footprints available for:

  • XBee3 zigbee communication
  • Temperature sensor
  • Current & voltage sensor

<WRAP center round important 60%> A glass fuse holder has been included in the design, for safety reasons! This is mandatory and a 1.6A slow blow fuse should be selected appropriately! </WRAP>

In addition I designed a smaller white LED circuitboard, with an FPC connection. Each LED driver can connect up to 8 of these, but only 4 in series due to current limitations of the FPC cables. This isn't any problem, as the LED driver PCB is positioned in the middle, giving us acces for 2 x 4 white LED PCB's on each side. Totaling 32 white PCB's, with 6 LED's each.

Testing

Early tests concluded a succesfull result, as can be seen in the images underneath.

Construction

Used materials

I had some leftover wooden boards, due to recently renovating a room. In order to reduce waste, I decided to reuse them as base-material for my ceiling lights. I tried building the light without 3D printing any parts, but changed my mind afterwards as the final result wasn't very neat.

3D printing

LED lights

Two different types of structural clips where 3D printed to keep the wooden planks neatly in place. The left image shows the structural clip on the outside of the ceiling light, the right image show the center clip. Collarfabb woodfill PLA was chosen for this print.

Each light holds 32 white LED pcb's, which require two crews each. This many screws wastes a ton of time, as an alternative clips where created to hold the LED circuitboards in-place on the structure. It are high-efficiency LED lights, so their temperature doesn't surpass beyond 45-50°C on max intensity. A center holder was also 3D printed to keep the control circuitboard in place, the LED drivers can become hot so a little air-gap was foreseen to avoid melting the plastic.

Installation

The installation was rather easy, using nearly invisible fish-wire with decent weight rating.

xnorit/public/summary/ledlightsceiling.1728751712.txt.gz · Last modified: by timdv91