instant on? CCFL, neon, EL wire, LED?

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ScubaSteve

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My project is sorta OT, but I figure you guys would know the answers.

What I'm doing is building a cabinet to hold DVDs. I want a light inside that turns on when you open the door.

What would people recommend? I want it to turn on instantly, do CCFLs flicker when coming on (similar to the crappy florescant lights where I work)?

LEDs seem more directional than other options. Will I be able to evenly light up the whole cabinet, or will it be more like a bunch of spotlights?

is EL wire bright enough to light up so that I can read the DVD covers?

Short of ripping a power supply out of an old computer, what can I use? just some type of AC/DC adapter and resistors??


Sorry for all the noob questions :eek: Thanks.
 
I dont think CCFLs are suppose to blink but they do take a little while before they are at the full brightness. I dont know about el wire.. leds would probably be the brightest although like you said they are directional. In conclusion I dont know ccfl would look nice tho.

For the powersupply you can just go to radioshack and get a 12v ac adapter and connect it to the light.
 
you could go over board with leds. if u wanted even distribution i would suggest that you have the LED hit some sorta matrial, like sand blasted plexi so that it spreads the light but this means that you will have to have more LED's in there
 
how about CCFl's in the back and ton's of led's on the sides over roughly sanded plexi? that sounds pretty sweet :)
 
you could put a small lever switch on the door, you can get them @ ratshack...

and CCFL's are definately good if you want a lot of light...

if its already shelved, like has slots for x number of dvd's it would be cool to have like one led per dvd, like directional lighting

dunno, mebbe its just me ;)
 
Look at your CCFLs if they, like most, get their power from teh red wire, they're 12 volt. You can usa anything that gives you 12v, hook up the + side to the red cable.

Instant-on could be achieved by mounting a switch that _opens_ the circuit if pressed. Stick this into the doorframe, so the door presses it when closed. Problem solved.

EL wire wouldn't br bricht enugh, it's more for accent lines. What you could do is EL panels, they are basically flat cold cathodes. Badass.

You can put a piece of paper in front of the LEDs to diffuse the light . use something semi-transparent, like wax paper.
 
oh, i got an idea...maybe when the door is closed the ccfl's dim alot...then you will get a neat "glowing" and the power will be going thru so when you open it it'll get instantly brighter!!! i think that should work!
 
Originally posted by Little Grabbi
Instant-on could be achieved by mounting a switch that _opens_ the circuit if pressed. Stick this into the doorframe, so the door presses it when closed. Problem solved.

EL wire wouldn't br bricht enugh, it's more for accent lines. What you could do is EL panels, they are basically flat cold cathodes. Badass.
Click to expand...

That was my intention, but I've checked a few places, including ratshack, and can't find a OPEN when pressed switch. I've found MANY closed when pressed, but not the opposite.

Link to a good example of EL panels?

I had an idea, and went and checked out those "rope lights" (they're just a bunch of LEDs in a flexible tube, right?)

I'm not sure if it was just the overly bright store (Had all the normal lights+ it was the section with ceiling fans, so those were producing light too) but it seemed to put out VERY little light.

Maybe it was just a crappy model, I dunno, but does anyone know about the output of lights from the LEDs in that, vs. individual ones I could buy?
 
Originally posted by ScubaSteve
That was my intention, but I've checked a few places, including ratshack, and can't find a OPEN when pressed switch. I've found MANY closed when pressed, but not the opposite.
Click to expand...

they are called relays/transistors ;)
 
I'd suggest finding some bright'o LED's. I have a 2,600 MCD LED on my HDD activity lead and a second one for the power LED on my Dual PII case. They come close to lighting up the entire room at night. ;) With about 10 more of them, I could light up the entire room. :p

I have somewhere around 100 LED's light up in this room at once (with my SCSI array up and spinning/creating lots of noise). There is an ethereal green and blue glow emenating from this room at night...

I just got an idea. I'm going to try to light my power and reset buttons...

Oh, another idea. At RadioSmack, they have some little 12v lamps. They're BRIGHT, I popped one into the 12v on my molex and it blinded me. Pop 2 of those bad boys in your cabinet and it'll be light up for sure. You might want to find a way to cover them with something (like a lampshade on a big lamp) so the light isn't so harsh. That way, you could get some green plastic or something and mount it a bit away from the lights and it would give you a green or blue or whatever color glow that would light the place up.
 
i would recomend hooking up a switch that is similar to the ones in a car trunk (you could get this at a junk yard, or somewhere online if you look) and hooking it up to one of those underbody neon kits they sell on ebay for like $45 or so, that way you get 2 4 foot tubes run down the sides, and 2 3 foot tubes for the top and bottom so that all of your movies are well lit, and all the neon would turn off simply by closing the door :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3074613091&category=20334 something like that for the lighting
 
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Originally posted by ScubaSteve
That was my intention, but I've checked a few places, including ratshack, and can't find a OPEN when pressed switch. I've found MANY closed when pressed, but not the opposite.
Link to a good example of EL panels?
Click to expand...


You'll find the switch at any good car repair shop. Your door open/close sensors should use these.

Comercial EL panel:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-5120225-1919149?v=glance&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER

And here's the bare part, they're avalible inthe same colors as EL glowstring and CCFLs (which are a kind of supercharged EL system). http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=EL-8
 
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Originally posted by Little Grabbi
Look at your CCFLs if they, like most, get their power from teh red wire, they're 12 volt. You can usa anything that gives you 12v, hook up the + side to the red cable.

Instant-on could be achieved by mounting a switch that _opens_ the circuit if pressed. Stick this into the doorframe, so the door presses it when closed. Problem solved.

EL wire wouldn't br bricht enugh, it's more for accent lines. What you could do is EL panels, they are basically flat cold cathodes. Badass.

You can put a piece of paper in front of the LEDs to diffuse the light . use something semi-transparent, like wax paper.
Click to expand...

RED WIRE IS 5 VOLT, YELLOW WIRE IS 12 VOLT
 
LED's are deffinately the way to go. They last much m\longer, are much easier to implement (no stupid power supply step up) and if you just go on ebay and get bulk led's you can get many more than you'll need for much tless than the cost of a CCFL.

Plus Turning on and off CCFL's quickly can be kinda bad. That Transformer has to step up and then step down quickly which tends to to put an inductive spike on the rails. Inductive spikes = bad.

I would just line the edges with LED's going into a sanded piece of acrylic. Keep sall of teh LED"s in parallel and use fairly thick wire (just in case). a small normally closed button in the door can be put on the power line so that the circuit is broken when you have the button depressed (ie doo closed).
 
Originally posted by Bleifrei
Plus Turning on and off CCFL's quickly can be kinda bad. That Transformer has to step up and then step down quickly which tends to to put an inductive spike on the rails. Inductive spikes = bad.
Click to expand...

How about adding a delay to the switch off like the curtesy light in expensice cars so it fades out.
 
Reed switches are easy to implement. That link is to one that is designed for doors with both NO and NC opperation. You just screw the pieces down so they will come close to each other when closed. No exact mechanical switch positioning needed.

I havn't had problems with turning ccfls on and off. They just go on and off. Undervolting them is not a good idea though.
 
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