Quote Originally Posted by Crunchypants
Point taken--I'll move my ignorance-fest back here.

I could have asked Knna, but then I'd have had to have someone explain his answer to me.

Tell me about it!

I had begun to think you weren't going to see this post, and at some point my eagerness overcame my sense of etiquette. Hope not to have offended anyone, and thanks again for your willingness to help.

Not at all. Best way to do it.

Dang! I had just found some little finned heatsinks at Radio Shack for the 317 in the TO-220 package. Going to have to think about mounting strategies for the LM 138 after I read up on it more. Looks like a big power transistor with the case electrically hot. Gotta figure out how to deal with that. CP.
We're dealing with low voltage here so an electrically "hot" heatsink need not be a problem.
The Ledengin die appears to be well insulated.


Looks like you are serious about this.
Sorry, but I'm not used to someone who reads and retains everything they can find before they start asking questions.
I'm impressed! And flattered.


To me, this is a way of obtaining meds that I can not obtain through legal channels or afford on the street.
I don't worry myself about a nanometer here or a uE there.
I just want maximum yield for minimum cost.

You may be dissapointed with the single warm white led.
At least as far as "seeing what you are doing" goes
As you say the white led is a crippled blue led and will be swamped by the red and blue.
I am using a 120W CFL to supply any odd color that my girls may be "pining" for.
(Does it do any good?
Jury is still out on that. )
And still, even with a flash, getting a true color picture is accomplished only with the LEDs powered off.
Fer instance:
[attachment=o213252]

Here's a shot of the top of my light if you haven't already seen it;
[attachment=o213253]
Shouldn't be hard to improve on this mess.
It works, but it's far from elegant.

Am still running the last light array I built on my bench supply.
I plan on using an Laptop switching supply for it and getting my bench supply back to develop my next light any day now

I gotta ask, why "crunchypants"?

Aloha,
Wee Zard