First of 40 done

[Burton]

This is to serve as a teaser while I compile the images I have take, two for each item soldered on so its a bit.

Also it should be noted this unit has not been tested beyond a short "pretest" of the LED's before soldering in place. I will try to get a working picture of this tomorrow when I solder on the main leads and the Jumpers for the other leads to jump to then next board.

 

This stated here is some goodness for you to look at. TLeft is 1, TRight is 2, BLeft is 3, BRight is 4

 

This first unit, as all first units do, took a bit of time to make ... I wasn't exactly sure how the leads were going to be positioned before and now I have a better idea. So this means I will be able to put all the LED's on a board (or most of them) at once then solder them in place versus putting a single element on at once.

When I edit this post at a later date I will include a "lead" diagram so you can just copy it from the start instead of wasting the time I had to in order to do this.

 

So preliminary notes, there were some LED's where I had to trim more of the bumper off to get them to lay flat ... this was maybe 10 but I will count tomorrow to keep track of how many you will need to adjust and I will include a notation about this in my summary of this step.

 

The boards above also do not feature the Jumpers yet so you are looking at raw leads, each resistor lead is a positive terminal and each extra lead pointing toward said resistors is the negative lead for the string indicated.

 

Tomorrow I will figure out where I am going to put the jumper leads, and the DC terminal leads (for the two boards which will require the DC terminal) and I will update my pictures. Depending on exactly what I end up doing tomorrow I might find time to sit down and write out the procedure and tools needed for this step ... But if I really get on a roll doing the other boards I might not get to it till later.

 

The good news is is its coming soon, very soon :) When all is complete I will probably write ONE guide and post it either on the forum or in my blog here. Though it will be long it will contain all steps and pictures required to duplicate the results.

I expect this project will take about 2 or 3 more days to complete as I still have not worked out how I am going to mount these yet and I will probably spend a day working out the best way to do it.

 

If you have questions feel free to ask I will answer them in between soldering boards :)

Oh and for the astute viewers out there you will notice the pictures are taken on stone tiles ... This is my work bench as I am barefoot sitting cross legged on the same tiles while assembling the LED's ... this is to reduce the chance of all static killing my LED's down to nearly 0 :) More on what you can do to avoid this in the final write up.

[Burton]

Ok got the assembly down to 1 hour per unit, I don't think I will be able to assemble them any faster and have the LED's all point in the proper direction.

 

I have not considered the mounting solution yet outside maybe using a thin piece of wood, or using a PVC pipe and heating it up to flatten half of it out.

Will update if I find a way to reduce the assembly time more, without having to preorder custom PCB's (which is always a option but they are expensive) With a custom PCB you could probably assemble a unit in 35 minutes or less.

[Burton]

Its not actually bad on the back if you dont slouch lol ... As long as part of you is touching the concrete its normally fine ... I sit cross legged a lot though so I am use to it, no couch in my living room for example just a kotatsu and my TV

Ok LED's by themselves are not that prone to static, but static can kill them. They normally only handle up to 50mA before dieing ...

That said at my old old old place of work we had about 5000 in a plastic bin on a steal shelf and we rarely had a bad one. BUT I was told by a good electrical engineering source that if I am seriously going to be working with "that number of LEDs," in reference to the 1540 I have down stairs, then I should take precautions against static as it can kill them.

I am not just sitting cross legged all the time, I do shift to laying down when "populating" the boards and keep my elbows on the concrete. When I am soldering the boards I switch to another position :)

Just an update on that note, I have 4 assembled boards, 5 makes one bar, and it takes about 2 hours to make one board >.< One hour is consumed with just populating the board, then the other hour spent soldering all the leads and wires then testing.

So far no dead LEDs :)

 

I did notice something odd though, some PCB are 11x11 on the sides and some are 11 to 14 on either side ... so I have several boards with different hole configurations which is very very odd. When I go to mount these I will most likely just drill holes for the LED arrays to fit through then drill individual holes for the screws for each board since none of them line up with each other ...

 

You get what you pay for :)

[TCLynx]

sitting cross legged on the floor to solder those boards, dang that has to be hard on the back!!!!!!

 

Are LED's really that prone to damage by static, I don't usually even take that kind of precaution when working with chips.

[Burton]

WOW that is so bright, I am still seeing a remnant of the test and I was 45 degrees off center!

The darker colored ones are UV (top left) and IR (bottom right)

Some new diagrams I made to help myself, and you guys. I will explain them later but for now you can look at them and ask questions if you have any. :)