Hey all, anyone have an idea for a cheap way to mount say...200 leds to something nice looking and have it stand up on a table? I would like to make a few of them so it would have to be something that was pretty easy, don't want to have custom made plexiglass boxes, that would be nice but pricey. Sorry my first question is so weird :0) I suppose alternatively they could be hand held, just looking for a simple solution.
Thanks
Mark
Hi Mark,
Welcome to the forum!
We're big fans of information here. So I'm gonna hammer you with questions which will help us provide help without this turning into a two-week back-and-forth session of "How about trying. . ." followed by "Well, I was thinking something more like. . ."
Do you have any ideas of what you want the device to do? Just glow steadily? Or will it indicate something? I mean, something which is intended to be a VU meter might look pretty crappy if it was built to look like a lamp, and vice versa. Then again, done right, it might look pretty good. So it would be helpful to know what you want the 200 LEDs to do.
What size are LEDs? Are we talking regular old 5mm round LEDs here, or flat LEDs, or surface-mounts, or Luxeons (ooooh. . .200 of those would be impressive) or what? I'm guessing round 5mm LEDs. I've had good luck just drilling 5mm holes and wedging the LEDs in there through the back, but you can get various kinds of mounts which fit in slightly larger holes. Then you place the holder in the hole, push the LED in from the back, and the width of the LED forces the mount out against the sides of the hole, holding it in place. Sometimes this type uses a second piece which acts as a shim to hold things tight.
Epoxy works. So does hot glue. Depends on the look you're going for. Hot glue is a lot easier to remove later if you don't like it, though.
What do you mean by "cheap"? Cheap means different things to different people. What's your budget?
Depending on the kind of LED you're using, 200 of them might generate a lot of heat. That might be a consideration.
Anyway, give us some more information and somebody may come up with something you like. Depends somewhat on what you can do and what you're into. For instance, currently I'm really into welding and I'm a computer programmer, so I might be likely to think of something I could make out of steel and which would indicate operating conditions on some of the servers I maintain. You might have different interests which would affect what you want to make.
Regards and good luck,
Torben