How to make a lamp with your own hands

Those who want to save money on lighting an apartment or house, do not need to wonder how to make the lamp yourself. Everything has been invented, it remains to choose. The best in terms of savings are LED bulbs. It is possible to buy the matrix separately, the question is why? Bulbs for different sizes of cartridges are on sale( common E27 and E14), it is easy to find options for 12 V. In this case, a male connector is used. It is not worthwhile to invent or do anything for typical applications. Much safer to buy.

Why make a lamp to make

Suppose you need a lamp that cannot be broken. For example, a portable option. Here already a bulb you will not manage. Glass is required due to alternating voltage. We have already told that low-quality bulbs blink when a high level of harmonics remained when smoothing the voltage of 220 V.The eye is not noticeable, but when shooting on a movie camera of low quality defects appear.

Quality lamps

Let's see how to check:

1. To assess the quality of LED light bulbs and arrays do not take expensive devices: SLR cameras, professional video cameras, other high-end gadgets. These devices include special options for suppressing optical noise. And although the SLR camera doesn’t transfer fast, the time is limited by the file size, but the top models have advanced features that will interfere.
2. When assessing the quality of LED lights and arrays, you should use the camera cheap cell phones or iPad. It is important to get the focus right. If the lens does not catch the light bulb, the experience will fail.
3. Flicker is captured in two guises. First, the ambient radiance can overflow. In this case, the lamp itself does not blink, but unpleasant waves of dark and light stripes, and moving ones, are clearly felt around. Secondly, the matrix is ​​flickering. Then it is easy to notice the defect.
4. Pay attention to an important detail: when evaluating the flickering of lamps, you should use only the photo mode. Otherwise, the built-in options for improving the image will prevent to see the correct picture.

Flickering lights are harmful to health. Day after day, blow by blow, they crush human health. First of all, the well-being of the nervous system suffers. Thus, the installation of lamps on suspended ceilings in order to save can go sideways. In addition, flickering lights are cheaper quality.

A simple rule is not always the case - the more expensive the better. On YouTube, there was a video clip where the Philips and the cheap Chinese lights blink equally. That means you need to check the LED lamps yourself. The main thing - do not make mistakes in the design. Directly LEDs do not work on AC, some tricks will be required.

Yes, the matrix will be found in the network, where it is written that they are powered from 220 V. In fact, these lamps are considered to be complex structures consisting of two branches, each working in its own half-period. If the device is cut directly without a filter, you get flickering in the lamp. The difference of expensive lamps from cheap ones: a more stable power supply unit is used in the first case.

LED lights

We should also mention the glass. Not always in LED lamps it is used for beauty. Often a phosphor layer is applied inside to provide the desired color. Smoothes to some extent and ripple. A pleasant feature of LED lamps is the lack of heat during operation. Within a minute, the bulb cannot be picked up. The LED lamp stays warm after a quarter of an hour and much longer.

Savings are hundreds of percent. The LED lamp consumes much less energy than others.

• The most profitable light source for designing luminaires are LEDs and their arrays. But not all semiconductor elements will fit. The range of infrared radiation is not visible to the eye, and ultraviolet is harmful, you should carefully choose the LED matrix. Savings of 10 times when compared with incandescent bulbs, and 1.5 - 2 times, if taking halogen light sources as a guideline.
  

  LED downlight

• LED downlight is characterized by a specific temperature. The higher the score, the colder the color. The latter is good in the office during the day, but not in the evening in the bedroom.
• LED arrays are a poor source of photons. The flow is uneven, blinking is harmful to health. When creating a lamp, you need an alternating voltage to straighten well and filter from the harmonics. And it is better to power the LED lamp directly from the battery( for example, 12 V).
• On the basis of matrices, safe appliances are created, which according to the standards are allowed to be placed in bathrooms. For example, if you need to light a mirror above the washbasin around the perimeter, it is forbidden to use conventional 220 V bulbs. But a homemade lamp with LEDs will allow to hold the light on the site.

The process of designing a lamp

The parameters of light sources

Most concerned about the question: where to start. The masters will need: review information, ability to think logically and access to the Internet. We have already explained why they are trying to use LEDs in the lamps, we will add: halogen bulbs also flicker. This can be seen when shooting.

We tried to capture this moment on video. A slight flicker is noticeable, and the essence of the process is as follows: an iPad with a bad camera is taken and transferred to the photo mode. The image from his screen was captured on a camera. And although the built-in options of smart technology have smoothed the flicker, it is still possible to make out with the naked eye. But it is necessary to transfer the iPad to video mode, as the ripples disappear. Again: the best and economical version of a homemade lamp will be an instance using an LED array.

LED matrix is ​​not selectable via the Internet. This is a product purchased by the piece, based on their own impressions. On Aliexpress it is easy to get the necessary lot cheaply, but it's easy to be deceived in quality.

Think over the situation. Suppose you need a manual lamp in the garage. You will need to buy a cartridge of the pin type, for example, GU 5.3 and enjoy relatively cheap light. Explain the choice. There are 12V LED bulbs for sale in G4 cartridges, even for E27, but the cost bites. One thing sometimes costs 25 thousand rubles! Looks much better LED lamp for GU 5.3 cartridges worth 150 rubles.

Please note that when powered with direct voltage, the fact of flashing is excluded. If the light bulb is turned on in parallel with other consumers, then negative phenomena will become possible. And the installation of lamps of the type described in a single chain is allowed. In this case, the consumption will become relatively constant. Pay attention to the low consumption of LEDs. They practically do not push the battery.

Powering a homemade lamp

Sometimes it seems that finding the voltage of 12 V is difficult. There are a lot of suggestions.

1. First of all, assess the suitability for obtaining a constant current power supply of a computer. Even if the body does not have the desired terminals, the problem is solved easily. It is easy today to get the USB cable and socket. This port does not need to be connected to the host. Instead, simply put it in any convenient place( only the slot reserved for the built-in interfaces of the motherboard is not suitable).Get power on the side terminals +12 V and ground, or with a polarity of -12 V and a common bus. The result does not change. By the way, a voltage of -12 V is left for compatibility with various junk, and if +12 V is 100% occupied, a vein with blue insulation will help solve the situation. There is no need to withdraw your quota from the connector. Just use tees to tie in the right cable. Compress or solder. When a USB port with a non-standard voltage( usually there is 5 V) is built into the case, we recommend that you sign the socket in order to avoid trouble, then pick up the cord. For example, the tail of an old mouse on a USB.According to the colors of the wires( red +12 V, black - common), unsolder the GU 5.3 chuck. At this point, the work is finished, check the polarity of the power supply with the tester and cut in the LED lamp.
   

   Creating a lamp

2. The battery option is simple, but requires the ability to handle such things. Lists a lot of rules: pouring electrolyte, maintenance, storage. Failure to comply with a large number of recommendations can cause damage to the battery. It remains to calculate the number of lamps in the room and place them in the right places. By the way, more closely with the concept of ampere-hours. It has been seen how these units divided each other instead of multiplying. The figure 70 Ah means that the battery can produce a current of 1 A for 70 hours, 35 A - 2 A, etc. In our case, the bulb usually consumes 10 W( or less), which means that the current will be 10/12 = 0, 83 A. The lamp in our example will begin to burn for 84 hours, for two hours - 42 hours. Let's make a reservation that 10 W consume powerful light sources, giving out 850 Lm. This corresponds to incandescent bulbs of 70-80 watts.
3. Batteries are permissible to use for such structures. True, their capacity is limited, the time of the homemade lamp greatly reduced.

We'll talk later on how to check the fluorescent lamp with a tester. You will learn that it is impossible to ring the flask, because there is gas inside. But it is permissible to assess the state of the starter and the arc throttle. The latter is a variant of a simple transformer( autotransformer), the state of the element is judged by the resistance of the windings. We do not recommend to independently design luminaires based on fluorescent lamps, it is much easier to take halogen at 220 V. By the way, both types, like diode ones, greatly complicate the debugging of the circuit.