Building your own underwater Led

[Sdc77]

Let us know and take pics of your new underwater leds

[Cusefan78]

Let us know and take pics of your new underwater leds

Will these work. Blue 5050 48smdimage.jpg thinking of wiring two of them per light and making my own mold.

[Cusefan78]

I'm going to try those lights. Ordered 4 of them and going to wire them together. I also ordered some silicone casting mold maker stuff. Going to make a rectangle mold big enough for the two panels. That way I can make as many as I want without getting those casters that seem to be an issue getting now. My question is now that I won't have a dark frame around the edge do you think I should darken the edge so I can focus the straight out instead of out the entire block. Any thoughts

[Cusefan78]

image.jpg well after thinking about it I have come up with something for a mold. They are reusable and should work perfectly. The square led lights I picked up fit in the soap mold and give me enough room on the sides for a screw hole. I'm thinking about spraying the sides and back of the light with spray paint or plasti dip so the light get focused straight out.

[Sdc77]

Hi Cusefan, I'm not sure spraying or adding some black or anything else on the sides will change something. I built tower leds for my boat, you find it here : https://forum.supraboats.com/showthr...-France/page27 I positionned the cap low to prevent leds lightenning the boat dash. Unfortunatly it did. I removed those leds from the tower when I mount the new HLCD speaker box, 2 weeks ago.

Just build it as you planed, and see how it looks. My first prototype is shiny and we clearly see that I used 140° leds.
It will look clean and chic with a rectangular form.
Just, keep in mind that resin is Crystal clear, you will perfectly see the back of the PCB, wires etc.

[Cusefan78]

That doesn't really bother me. Other then me nobody will ever see them out of the water. If the edges come out of the mold super clean then I probably will leave the edges Raw. What do you think about pouring them upside down. What I mean is placing the back of the panel towards the opening in the mold that way the light side will have the natural round over from the mold. Thinking about placing something small on the bottom of the mold to hold the led panel above the bottom of the mold. Was even thinking of using fishing line to suspend the lights up off the bottom

[Sdc77]

Hi man,
I did the same on a prototype you can see on page 12 :

https://forum.supraboats.com/showthr...ter-Led/page12

Leds were facing the inside of the can, I did suspend them with bended paperclip and a plastic sheet on the can's border (see the scheme).

Fishing line will be invisible, great idea man

[Cusefan78]

Well here goes nothing. image.jpg

I spent some time at hobby lobby today and met an nice old lady that was picking up resin also. Turns out she does this on the side and sells pieces all
Over the country. After picking her brain I'm trying a different resin then I used last time. I'm also pouring them differently. I started out by mixing 3/4 of a cup of resin. Poured it into the bottom of the mould. I then waited about 45 minutes till it turned into jello consistency. After that I painted on a thin coat of resin and embedded the led panels into the jello making sure they were centered. After that I poured another layer of resin into the molds. The older lady said to not pour it on top but to pour it down the side so it can spread. This method will minimize the air pockets trapped between layers. After they were poured I grabbed a hair dryer and quickly ran it over each mold to bring any residual air to the top. I'm now waiting for them to dry completely so I can demold them. Cross my fingers and hope they come out as nice as I'm hoping. I'll post pics tomorrow after I pop them out of the mold. All together I have around $65 into 4 lights. My next batch will be even cheaper because the molds are reusable

[Sdc77]

Sounds great, can't wait to see the final result

[Cusefan78]

So here they are. When I removed them out of the mold I found one air bubble in the face. After researching resin polishing I did I light wetsand of the face with 1000 grit. I then added another very thin layer of epoxy over the top of them to make a dome look to the top. I also brushed on a thin coat of epoxy around the edges to seal in the black paint I used on the sides. For my first batch I think they came out pretty nice. I'll post pics of them lit up tomorrow. After I mount them and the silicone dries. image.jpgimage.jpg