Braeden Hamson
- Feb 18, 2016
- 240
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2016
- Messages
- 240
I don't know whether to classify this idea as hairbrained or not half-baked. Regardless, I'm not taking this very seriously. So if you'd like to have a bit of fun, read on.
I've been thinking a great deal about the power lost in the LED lights I have in my house. They all contain AC-DC power supplies. Each one loses about 5-6W on conversion. I have about 12 or so in my house so I lose 68 W, which is negligible when my air conditioner takes 1800W. But us engineering types are never satisfied. The actual LED module runs at 60 V, 10 6V LEDs in series AFAIK. So here's the hairbrained part, what if I took a 120V to 30V transformer, you wire 5 of the LEDs one direction and 5 the other. You'll get the first 5 turned on between 0 and π of the AC wave and the other 5 will be on from π to 2π. No need for AC-DC conversion and the whole thing will be much more efficient. Now you may say, it will be half brightness. True, but we're pulsing the LEDs meaning we can over drive them to make them brighter. As is common in cars. The only drawbacks I can see is a lack of current limiting. What have I overlooked? I hope to learn a little more about "das blinken lights" in the process.
-Thanks for putting up with this post
I've been thinking a great deal about the power lost in the LED lights I have in my house. They all contain AC-DC power supplies. Each one loses about 5-6W on conversion. I have about 12 or so in my house so I lose 68 W, which is negligible when my air conditioner takes 1800W. But us engineering types are never satisfied. The actual LED module runs at 60 V, 10 6V LEDs in series AFAIK. So here's the hairbrained part, what if I took a 120V to 30V transformer, you wire 5 of the LEDs one direction and 5 the other. You'll get the first 5 turned on between 0 and π of the AC wave and the other 5 will be on from π to 2π. No need for AC-DC conversion and the whole thing will be much more efficient. Now you may say, it will be half brightness. True, but we're pulsing the LEDs meaning we can over drive them to make them brighter. As is common in cars. The only drawbacks I can see is a lack of current limiting. What have I overlooked? I hope to learn a little more about "das blinken lights" in the process.
-Thanks for putting up with this post