Building your own LED lighting part 1

I have been fascinated by LED lights since my 1st contact with them 20 years ago, mainly the small greenish light on the computer casing that indicates power on and another for HD spinning… These little lights have been serving that application so well, that its still being used.

Calliste head illuminated by forty-eight LEDs

But they have certainly come a long way since its invention. The radical changes to its brightness and colors in the past 10 years, made it useable in many more applications like traffic lights, flashing signages, decorative lighting, automotive lighting, etc … Most interesting to me, small space lighting.. because the common LED light is very narrowly focused, it does not diffuse well for lighting a room, but new LED lights are being introduced at a very fast rate and soon it will be possible for the indoor room lighting that is affordable to most people. I mean.. now it is available, but not that affordable to most. .. and me.. I refuse to afford 1 sensibulb for US$40. Maybe there will come a time when the price will drop to $10.. but in the meantime, using all my education and experimental skills, I am building my own LED cabin lights for Eleanor.. and maybe Calliste, if Doug approves.. 

I am also hoping that my blogging about it will help fellow sailors switch to these “Amp pinchers”.. .. its really quite cheap if you know how to build it yourself.

LED electric 101

Quick and easy way of trying out my designs.

I classify common LED as 1) between $0.10 to $0.50 ea. 2) available in small quantities (< 1000 pieces). 3) operates at voltage and current range of 2.5-3.5V, 5-100mA.

This picture shows my testing setup. The board with holes is commonly known here as the “breadboard”.. not sure how it got its name.. It is the greatest tool in my electric work kit. Just plug in the resistors and LEDs, and only 2 jumpers in my 1st setup. If you buy this board, read the instruction on how to use it properly.

12V LED circuit. These values are calculated. Real circuit values will differ due to operating tolerance of each component.

Here, I am trying to build a cabin reading light on Eleanor. This light fixture will be connected to a 12V battery. Using this 12V input, I want to generate the optimum amount of reading light with the least energy consumption. The question is, how many LEDs do I need and what current do I supply to the circuit to produce the light that I want?

I start out by testing a series 4 LED setup for 12V and supplying 20mA. The series 4 LED setup is the most efficient for 12V as each LED will be supplied with the optimum 3V voltage (as spec’ed), and the V drop across the resistor is a minimal 0.2V. Since this test is only 1 row of series 4 LED and my target current is 20mA, I calculate the resistance for this circuit using this formula: R= V/ I(target) -> R = 12/ 0.02 -> R = 600 Ohms. The result from this test gives me a initial feel of the brightness of 1 row 4 series LED. Note: 20mA = 0.02A, use 0.02A because the unit of measurement of the formula is A!

Next, I increase the target current to 50mA. Using the same formula: R= 12/0.05 -> R = 240 Ohms. I like this light color and intensity much better. Note, the optimum performance of these common LEDs is in the range of 20 to 30mA. 50mA is not the optimum, but I like it, so I use it.

Now, its a matter of increasing the number of LED rows to achieve the brightness that I want. The key here is, to increase in rows of series 4 LEDs and to adjust the resistance for maintaining 50mA. For adding rows, I apply the principle of current divider in this circuit. To supply 50mA to each row, that means total current across the resistor should be (number of rows) x 50mA. For example, 4 rows  series 4(thats 16 LEDs in total) at 50mA each, total current will be 4 x 0.05A, = 0.2A. To supply 0.2A across the resistor, R= 12/0.2 -> 60 Ohms.

Get the picture? Use this sequence of thinking. 1) What is the supply voltage? 2) How many LEDs will the supply voltage support in 1 row? 3) Determine much current to supply and how many rows is needed to get your desired brightness.

Alright, I am satisfied with the 4 rows series 4 setup. Now I am ready to make this fixture. I will post the making of the light fixture later.

How does this LED light compare to other lighting options? Lets see. A 9W flourescent draws 0.8A and produces 400 lumens. My setup here draws 0.2A and produces 128 lumens(estimate from 16 x 8lumens specified in spec). The 9W light fills the cabin better, but the LEDs is a great flicker free reading light for a small area and it uses 1/4 of the current for the 9W light. I would probably be able to light the cabin effectively using 4 LED light fixtures because it produces a 512 lumens brightness in total, but it should be distributed to be effectively. I mean, if all 4 LEDs are mounted together in 1 spot, the light is very bright and focused on 1 area. I find that it is more effective to mount them separately. .. Will show how its setup on Eleanor .. later.. when I finish.. see, I am just posting after every stage of my testing here..

Sculling Eleanor – what does it take?

I had been wanting to scull Eleanor since many years ago, but all my previous setup were just not right.. and I had no idea what was wrong. .. There were nobody that had any real sculling experience that I could understudy around me. Internet info was as good as it gets, but not enough to help me understand whats wrong with my setup or my strokes. .. It was pure good luck that, after 3 yrs of not thinking about sculling, I discover a sculler among our midst!

1st prototype with sculling oarlock.

My sculling lesson with Terry rekindled my interest in sculling Eleanor. It was a matter of setup and strokes. Now that I am getting the strokes right practising on a dinghy, next step is to figure how to make it work on Eleanor. 19ft and 1 tonne, that makes sculling Eleanor alot more dependent on setup. I mean, sculling is possible, all it takes is either superpower or super efficient setup for the small size little o’ me.

Sculling near the aft, short pivot distance, small leverage = high energy needed for each stroke

This is our 1st setup, 1 weekend after my sculling lesson. We could scull Eleanor using this setup, but it is very slow and very tiring.

Sculling from midship, better leverage but oar has tendency to dig in, resulting in overhead sculling

Not something we could keep doing for 15mins.. and not sure if we were making any real progress at all..

Oar pin with golf ball for pivoting

Using this setup, we analysed what could be done to improve the strokes with alot less effort. 1) A lot of energy is spent on keeping the oar in the right balanced location in the oarlock. The oar has a tendency to slide, and so I have to work to counter. 2) Adding a oriental lanyard may help “cocking” the oar and keeping it in place, such that I am not sculling with hands above my head.

Sculling in action.

I recognize that, the 1st step to efficient sculling would be to not waste energy balancing the very heavy 14ft oar. A oarlock design that fixes the position of the oar will be the 1st improvement that we should work on.

After 1 week of internal brain storming, this is my new setup. Using a long bolt, golf ball, thick walled PVC pipe section and small PVC pipe to cover the threads. Setup the large “pin” as shown. Attach the large “pin” to the oar, fixing the position of the oar at my most prefered sculling seat position. The sculling base is a piece of Aluminium plate, stuck onto wood with a 2″ wide, 3″ depth hole. The base is mounted onto the utility bolt studs that was meant for a swim ladder. This is just a mock up and every material used were just whatever we had in stock.

Our 2nd setup worked much better. We were definately making progress, albeit slow… at 0.5kn (measured using the GPS). In this setup, it was easy for me to get into the swing of things and I could scull a solid 1hr without getting 1/2 as tired as before! That was the good news.

There were afew things that surprise us. We never thought, that the slight curve on Eleanors’ transom would make a significant difference sculling blade angle. The starboard angle was alot more than the port angle as a result of the slight tilt. That was enough to give Eleanor the tendency to veer starboard and we could not compensate for it using the tiller… but possibly a slight modification to the base would be enough to change that. The other surprise was, that the oar had too much buoyancy and so the oriental lanyard didnt work. We pull on it and the oar jump right out of the water. hmm…

Okay, so we get a 0.5kn with this setup. My target is 1.5 to 2kn. We will be back to testing after some tuning.. come back again next week if you are interested to know what we did and how it performed.

The inner peace

Or “the peace within”. Whatever it is, is not easy to get… thats what I am told… To me, it’s a state of mine, that is to be treasured (if I  ever get there).. I think I have, at times been there. Some of those rare occasions are when I am sailing solo.

I come from a line of seafarers. Ah Gong was a boatboy who moved from Swatow, China to Singapore in early 1900s. The family settled down in the Catholic parish land of “Kangkar”, which is northeastern Singapore and now known as Hougang. My father was a engineer and a uncle was an officer on commercial cargo ships. Another uncle was a sea sports man, winning medals in canoeing and water skiing.

Kangkar is TeoChew for “Harbour End”, and Hougang is Mandarin for “Back Harbour”. .. so it kinda means the same thing.. Anyway, the area had a whole network of creeks and swamps, leading to the Serangoon river. .. this was my childhood playground. Growing up among fishing nets, small boats and coconut trees, all my weekends involved boating, fishing, crabbing and clamming. That was fun!

Naturally, I am a outdoor sea sports type person. Getting myself the powercraft license is as normal as driving a car.. and owning a boat is like getting a car. … I wonder why all my sisters are not like me.. they have no license and dont own cars or boats.. hmm… 

My family did only power boating… rowing was only done out of necessity (very rarely). There were no sailors … until me! Pretty sad tho, cause I wasnt exposed to sailing at a young age.. all those years that I didnt know sailing! The irony of it all is, I decided that I would be a sailor, on the day that I took and passed the powerboat license test. Then revealation hit me when I was taking the test boat out, and a Hobie cat sped across infront of me. I thot, it went so fast, so quietly, so gracefully… and look! what a pretty boat. It was so fascinating to me to see one of those sailing craft close up.. and yes, I pass the test and am a licensed powercraft operator in SG, but I wasnt feeling too elated by that fact. .. My mind was already onto something else!

1 week after passing my test, I bought myself a new Walker Bay 8 with sailing kit.. and a used 2HP Honda 4-stroke air cooled OB. .. and I borrowed the “Basic sailing” book from the library.. .. my 1st self taught sailing lesson was off the Punggol pier beach! The trip only lasted 5 mins.. as the weather conditions of that day was not conducive to beginning sailors..! I ended up on the rocky beach of Punggol, wet and pulling Sea Sparrow behind hind as I trek back to where I started from … a very humbling start to sailing.. its not as easy as I thought.. Back to the books.

…………..I got it right 2nd time. The experience was much more satifying than getting my powercraft license. It was like opening a door to a new world that is so fascinating to me. So, now that I can sail, I begin to make trip plans for me and little Sea Sparrow. I would load up with food and liquid for 1 day, shove off and sail 4 – 8hrs each time. Starting from my home beach of Punggol, making my way east, turning around at Changi Sailing Club after gawking at bigger sailboats, making it back before dark. It surprise me that, 1) I really love the solitude of sailing alone 2) that sailing the familiar waters of Punggol and Coney Island gives me the state of mind that I call “inner peace”. The feeling of returning to a old playground (alone), good ol’ memories flashing, while I am rocking gently at 2knots.. is beyond my language skills to describe.. This is what sailing solo does to me, putting me in a very relaxed mood 1st, then reflective and comtemplative… and so a day goes by and I put Sea Sparrow away for yet another adventure. I go home burnt and tired, but always high spirits.. like I am on Valium or something..

1 year later, I happen to be in the right place (Alameda Marina) and right time, where I found my 2nd boat, a Cape Dory Typhoon weekender. I rarely sail Eleanor alone. She has too many eager fans wanting to go for a ride. Those times that I did sail alone, I had been too busy about sailing that I dont quite get into the “spot”. Maybe its the speed.. Eleanor travels 4-5kns. There were some very brief moments, that I do get high on sailing Eleanor.. The calm waters of Sebana Cove, a gentle little breeze, the familiar rocky banks and same old boats.. I love sailing into the esturary among the waterfront apartments, and seeing baby palm by our workshop..

.. hmm.. so, as I have found, the “treasure map” to my “inner peace”… a combo of sailing in familiar waters, sights, slow speed, quiet and solitude. .. I am a journey person and I will eventually leave Singapore. I hope that wherever I go, I will have “treasures” aplenty.

Stop and Think!

This week started abit strange… I was overwhelmed with blogging energy. .. so I thought I would write up my job description for the benefit of my non engineering friends. .. How would I write about semiconductor technology and development over the years for the non technical mind..? Well, I tried.. see if you like it or not. http://funvinyldecals.wordpress.com/about/engr/what-is-ic-layout-design/ and http://funvinyldecals.wordpress.com/about/engr/physical-verification-of-ic-layout-design/ 

I did a bit of research before writing those. .. and after I finish, I begin to reflect on how the world changed in 30years that passed before my eyes. .. For example, I remember the 1st telephone that my family had.. it was analog and had the round spinning disc with holes and numbers… and it has a very loug ring to it. A few years later, it was replaced with a boxlike phone with square buttons and a ring that was more pleasant. .. and I remember using that phone alot! Teenage.. girls chat alot on the phone during that time. .. At that time, mobile phones were not yet produced for the masses. So if you were planning something, its a definate commitment once you hang up. There can be no change of plans or any deviation, because there was no way to inform the other party! Many times, I have waited for friends at bus-stops and never really sure after 10mins, are they on their way. .. but cant leave because what if they turn up in the next minute. But look at us now. Always in touch. Everyone of us have a mobile phone! Unexpected delays, no shows, wrong bus-stops.. whatever! All these problems of the old days gone! … umm… could we live 1 day without our phone… ?

And what about those romantic days of writing letters and postcards to overseas friends or “pen-pals” ? And whatever happened to sending Christmas cards? … and ..er .. stamp collecting hobby?

Now do you see my point? .. probably no.. afterall, what is there to think about? .. .. I wonder if most people appreciate what modern technology has done for us? I mean, we obviously are in love with our gadgets, but do we savor the moment after we reestablish contact with a long lost friend over Facebook? I think.. deep down inside us, we want to remember those good ol’ times and good ol’ people. Modern communications just made it so easy.

Now, I am back in contact with some of my long lost friends on Facebook and ex colleagues on Linkedin. .. Have been doing alot of name search lately, some friends are not on these 2 great social networking sites yet.. hoping that they and more people will be on it, in time to come.

Learning the ancient skill of sculling

What is sculling? Here is a description, http://www.woodenboat.net.nz/Stories/Sculling/scullthree.html .

Terry showing me how to do it.

Why are we interested in sculling..? I think it is should be a very reliable means of propulsion that is most easy to achieve. I am hoping to be able to scull Eleanor.. in case there is no wind and the outboard is not working or low fuel… Besides, it should be good exercise and fun… overall a good skill to have for boaters.

Practising my sculling motion by the pontoon

After many failed attempts 3 years ago, we were resigned and think that 1 day we might learn it from a master in China. .. .. but hey, who wld’ve thot, Terry on S/V Sihai knows all about sculling!

My 1st baby steps in sculling.

Before the days of engines, human kind were already fishing and exploring the world. Mayflower was not motorized and it still brought Columbus to America. As Terry tells me, the old English fisherman sculls their boats from shore out to sea, then raise sails. Sculling was a everyday thing in those days.

Look at my baby sculling wakes.

It is sad that a great skill is lost and people now depended too much on engines. Sculling is like an art, that most people dont see the beauty in them, prefering the convenience of the engine instead.

Nice quiet sculling morning...

30 mins out, I think I am getting the hang of it. Its simple, quiet and nice.. very enjoyable exercise. Its so great to see a little energy translate into propulsion and moving along.. Is that why people do sports..?

I certainly enjoyed my morning sculling.. and taking in all that heritage.

Fixing up an “abandoned” property at Sebana

Our electric connection at the container was deteriorating. Sometimes its just low current available, other times its totally out. Sebana has always been patch fixing it… that is never really fixing the root of the problem, which is a broken down underground cable. Finally, it totally gave up and Sebana’s management decided to not fix it anymore as the cost will be quite high.

Wire twisting setup out in the woods

Now, we really have a problem with that. We have installed a burglar alarm system on our container (due to the terrible breakin experience that we had, click on the Sebana tag to read the history), and it runs on power and battery. And now that Sebana cut back on its number of security guards, they do not patrol this area anymore. This situation is very threatening, such that we had to jump into a how do we fix it mode, rightaway.

1st, Doug check out the nearest electric outpost to the container… seems like a 200m overground line will do it for us. We really felt abandoned here, and so we decided to not even get permission to hook up to that source and just do it. So we did, get 7 coils of 100m 2.5mm single core, and couple of weather proof plugs. Here we are, improvising to do the job in the outback setting of “Doug’s and Lang’s workshop”.

Our twisted 3 core 100m coil. That was alot of work.

It took us a total of 2.5 days, 2 of us, to put it all together. Just twisting the coil took a full day, and then hacking thru the bushes to lay the wire, and climbing up trees for the overhead stretch.

Putting on the plugs at our scenic workshop.

We are not about to give up our scenic workshop space and move away..

Installing the wire

Doug trodding thru the jungle and laying out the wire overground. Our colorful coil is pretty much covered up by the thick bushy growth and not very visible..

Throwing a monkey fist.. what is that?

 

Doug up a ladder in a rather soft spot on the ground.. a delicate balancing act and attempting to accurate throw the fist into the V of the tree branch… and he got it on 1st try! Yippee!

We did try to make it harder for the desperate locals to snatch our wire… by looping it up on a tree across the dirt road. It would mean that if they wanted our wire so bad, they would have to bring a really tall ladder into the the outback just like we did.. but they would have to travel on a motobike with it. And theres the thing about how we installed it, that they would only get a small segment of the whole line before they will be discovered. Yes, we are paranoid and we are setup to avoid problems with the thieving locals. This is the outback, we protect ourselves and our assets, and we are our own security.

Level 32 on Restaurant City!

Yippee! I did it again! At the max level on Restaurant City on Facebook. And my thots this time round? Hmm.. I wonder if there will be another big enhancement to the game… like add animal husbandry or something..

Just yesterday, I notice new dishes and some new graphics .. but a big change to the buying ingredients system. If you paid US$4.99, you will get 25 “cashcoins”, which you could choose to buy 3 ingredients at 8 “cashcoins” each. That is a major improvement. Afterall, if you paid any money, you would want to be able to choose and buy something, just like going to the supermarket. .. Another way of getting ingredients is through swapping with your friends if they have what you need, and dont need it themselves… or for US$2.49, you could swap stuff with Blackmama on BlackMarket. .. Details at http://blackmama.wordpress.com ..

Shake tree, get coins?

All my hours devoted to this game would seem like time wasting to most.. even myself.. I should probably join some facebook addiction anonymous..

BTW, I did find some hidden secrets.. Have you ever wondered about the trees in your backyard. .. Was there a saying, money dont grow on trees? In RC, it sometime does. Go shake it and see for yourself.. I get 1 for every 4 to 5 trees that I shookup.. The smaller restaurants have more trees, so start with them. Note, only 1 coin per tree and no points.

Another discovery. Trash is gold!… and points too. Visit your friends restaurants and pick up any trash you. You probably know that already.. but did you know, if your friend left the trash uncleared, then you get to clear them? Otherwise, there will be no trash. For example, I go into my restaurant after 8hrs of not checking on my guys, and finding them stuck to the ground. I close the restaurant and turn them in to bed. I can choose to clear the trash or not. If I cleared it, my friends wont get to pick trash from visiting my restaurant later. If I left 10 trash items, there will be 10 for them to pick. You get the idea? It means you have to agree amongst your friends to leave trash uncleared till they are ready to operate the restaurant again.

Trashy cash.

The other thing to note is, that the longer operating hours the restaurant did, the more trash will be present when you check in again. Even if the restaurant was not operating, trash will also be generated.. but it needs the restaurant owner to check in and save to exit without picking trash, for the friends to pick up when they visit later. One more tip, if your friend’s restaurant is full of trash, you could come back over and over again to pick up trash, but each time you would have to return to your own place, save and exit, check in again and go over to your friends’. I do this alot when my guys are resting or not very productive…

I have till date picked up over 8000 trash ( as shown in the “Awards” page), that means I have used 8000 coins to purchase some ingredient.. and also that 8000 points that I got, helped me move a little quicker up the levels. I guess it depends on how desperate you are to move up eh..?

Chinese style stir-fry Shrimp in tomato sauce

My last good Shrimp in tomato sauce was too many years ago.. when Ah Ma was still around and doing a fair bit of cooking. This was 1 of Ah Ma’s signature dish.. IMHO. Simple, quick, easy and goes well with rice or noodle. ..

This was a simple dish that I somehow never attempted… until now. Why now? Guess I must be missing Ah Ma again.

Starting with the ingredients preparation. 300g medium shrimp, shelled and deveined. 300g squids, cut into rings, tentacles may be used if you like. 1 medium red onion, chopped in half, then quarters. 2 garlic, minced. 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped into 1″ size.

Seafood in tomato sauce.. Yummy!

Next, make the sauce. Mix 2 tablespoon ketchup, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon light soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional), 1 tablespoon cornflour into 2 cups water. Stir well.

Ok, now ready to start cooking. Heat oil, fry onions until soft and slightly brown. Add garlic and stir-fry until garlic is slightly brown too.  Add tomatoes, low heat, simmer for 2 minutes. Add seafood, stir-fry around. Add mixture, stir well. When all seafood is cooked, turn off heat and ready to serve.

Egg noodles. Really quite tasty.

See, its that simple. Ah Ma never use squids for this dish… and I wonder if she uses salt? My kitchen was salt-less for many years and my mum and sisters never like my cooking. Ah Ma never complain about it though.. ..

Egg noodles in Seafood in tomato sauce.

This is my 1st attempt at this.. and it dont quite have the same flavour as I remember.. … I will use more ketchup and a little more sugar next time.. maybe a touch of pepper, and some fresh chili flakes.. 

And the noodles, for 2 serving. We bought this package of dried egg noodle. Me thinks its for 3 serving, but we only use 1/2 the package for the 2 of us. It was enough for a light lunch. To cook the noodles, boil 2cups water, add noodles, stir regularly. Turn off heat when noodles are soft. Drain and serve onto plate. Pour Seafood and gravy over the noodles. Tata!

The week that was …

TGIF! Opps! A week has gone by… … I know, I’ve been delinquent on this blog… but but…. I was working on Sticky blog.. had a dateline to meet.

As planned, StickY BusinesS new catalog site has been launched on Oct1 2009! Yeah! and Phew! I think there is still much to do and will continue to add to it. Dear friends, please give me your feedback, good and/or bad.. .. check it out http://coolvinyldecals.wordpress.com .

I am giving away S$2 StickY credit for every constructive feedback received on this post. Click on the comment button (which u can find near the header), and fire away! Only 1 voucher will be given per person. Hope to hear from ya!

Making Ceviche onboard S/V Calliste

Ahh… once again… .. we are making Ceviche. sigh.. havent we had enough of this sour stuff yet? .. well, .. this time we have help from Van.. she wants it more than we do, so shes gonna do all the hardest part of the work.

Whatever it takes to make it a good one.

6am, go to wet market. Bought 1kg fresh white meat fish, 1/2kg squids, 1/2kg large prawns. Almost 2kg limes, 2 large onions, some Chinese parsley. You have to be early at the Sg Rengit wet market to get these stuff.. really..

The galley feels a little too crowded for the 3 of us, so I choose to work in the cockpit, leaving Doug to use the galley space, Van to do the limes on the chart table.

Very good squids. They turn out very well in this batch.

Van is a fast worker. She finished squeezing the limes, as I chopped up 3 garlic and 2 onions finely.

workspace in the cockpit.

Then she came out and help with the chili flaking, while I go back down to steam the prawns. By this time, Doug is done with cutting the fish meat into small bits.

White snapper meat filets before cutting up.

We start the Ceviche going with putting the fish, onions and garlic into the lime juice. Adding the sliced squids and prawns as and when they are finish.

Prawns are only steamed lightly. Our last batch, prawns were over cooked.. were a little tougher than prefered.. Thats me, turning the prawns over, allowing only 1 min on each side. Doug’s abit worry that the prawns were still raw, .. never trust his judgement on that… as soon as the prawns turn pink all over, I remove them from the pot. Our conclusion after the 4hrs taste test, the prawns were perfect!

Lightly steamed prawns.

On the prawns prep, I choose to steam before removing the shells. Seems like shells come off easier after steaming. We are firm believers in removing the “poop”. Van was a great help with that!

In less than 2hrs, the Ceviche prep was done. A record for us. Shortest time taken. Still it would take 4hrs in the fridgerator before we could do our 1st taste test. … Enuf time for a short paddle upriver, cooking and eating a lunch. .. Taste test, this is a very promising batch! Only needed a little soy sauce. Yum! Opps, I forgot to take pictures of the Ceviche itself! Oh so dum!