Best IR light out there? Cheapeast aswell.

I amsetting up cameras now for security at my parents business. I want some powerfull IR light tobe able to record at night. Whatkinda IR light is best? And is there any options cheaper than others?

They are pretty easy to build. The surplus sites usually have IR LEDs fairly cheap. I used perfboard, saves drilling a lot of holes... From a 12volt supply, you can run 9 leds in series, with a 47 ohm resistor(might want to recheck, been a couple of years), and you can put as many of these as your power supply can provide current for. Mine do pretty good with 54 LEDs. Wouldn't get too crazy though, if the camera is B/W, and sensitive, you will flood the scene, and you will only see white. Most color only cameras have a filter, and might not pick up much at night. Learned the hard way, now most of my newer cameras are day/night and have LEDs built in, don't really need separate illumination, but use them anyway, since I built them...

If you are really low on funds, collect a bunch of remotes, usually good for one or two LEDs, and who doesn't have a few useless remotes laying around, thrift shops will probably have a few cheap as well.

SALE! Powerful IR LEDs-The Electronic Goldmine
These are mixed, but 20 for $1.49, compaired to 20-30 cents each...

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Little pricey, compared to just building your own from scratch, but might be in your range.

Commercial grade IR illuminators are hugely expensive. But homemade & lower quality ones have a very limited range. A good quality colour camera with have an IR cut filter. In low light the camera will revert to B/W for max image capture. You may need multiple IR illumination if you are looking at an area larger than about 15m x 15m. If the area are are interested in is a "choke point" like a doorway then you will get away with just one. Diodes from TV remotes are not very good as they are the wrong IR wavelength

I get pretty good range (about 30 feet), and have used both 880nm and 940 nm LEDs, only difference is the 880nm shows up red if you look at it straight on. Haven't actually used the remotes LEDs, don't have enough, but figure a wider view angle which would be nice. I don't know what you mean about 'wrong wavelength', use a digital camera to check remotes to see if they are working. Can't be that far off, as not function. Mentioned it, because they can be obtain for free, if you do a little work find them, extracting them. May not compete with a $200 light, but it's basically free, and should be better than nothing at all.

thanks for the help

seems like I should just use the general purpose IR led´s.