It's alive! Thanks again everyone!


This one kind of reminds me of Sauron on Barad-dur (except this is green-ish) lol. I may look into some orange translucent film to make the light warmer. Though, since it's outputting mostly blue-green light, I'm sure it'll dim it some.

 

Well let there be light. Can you share why it works? Enquiring minds want to know. Glad it is working.

Ron

 

LEDs are not like incandescent lights, normally they do not change color temperature as they get dimmer, they just deliver less light.

 

LEDs are not like incandescent lights, normally they do not change color temperature as they get dimmer, they just deliver less light.

Sorry, I meant that if I use a warm filter to reduce the cooler wavelengths from the blue-green LED, the net result may be dimmer. There’s more then just filtering going on though, there will be absorption and re-admitting of photons, but the overall result should be slightly dimmer. I’ll have to experiment though.

 

That would be more than just a simple filter.

 

There is discussion on another thread on the dangers blue light presented by LEDs designed to produce white light.
You can experiment with putting a thin sheet of orange or red plastic on the inside of the lamp,

 

I think a blue-green "white" LED does not produce any or much red-orange light then a filter will not change the color, it will just dim it. A warm-white LED is a blue LED with a yellow-orange phosphor on top. It produces some orange if it has an orange filter.

 

Spectrum of "white" LEDs.

 

The dangers of blue light are vastly exaggerated, and consider that the exposure to this light will not be so very long, and that at any distance it will not be so intense. So any problem is vastly exaggerated.

 

Thanks Audioguru again and MrChips, that's exalt what I was thinking the issue with trying to filter it would be. Another LED would be the best solution, but at this point I'll just live with the blueish light.

 

Well let there be light. Can you share why it works? Enquiring minds want to know. Glad it is working.

Ron

Hey Ron, so the shorts version is:

The polarity on the lantern's bulb socket was positive on the side and negative on the bottom.

This isn't matter for the original, non-LED bulb. However, the LED bulb (the only one bulb I could find locally) needed the negative to be on the side and positive to be on the bottom.

Since the actual metal contacts in the lantern are the same size and shape, with one being bent and one straight, I ended up re-bending them to make the bottom contact positive, and the side contact negative. Basically, straightened the end of negative metal contact so the it would touch the side of the bulb, and bent the end of the positive metal contact so it could touch the bottom on the bulb. Now the polarity matches what the LED bulb requires.

 

Just a [likely final] follow up, the lantern worked great on our camping trip. Since I originally wasn't sure if I could get this one working, I bought another one on Amazon. So fixed the lantern became the one I hung in the top of the tent, and the new one (with a dimmer) became the lantern I put between our sleeping bags.

Everything worked out great. Thank you to everyone for your help on this! I've both learned AND saved something from becoming waste.

Now, if I only has an air-conditioner in the tent, we may have had slept better in the hot August summer night!

 

Thanks for sharing the results. I have fond memories of taking my daughter camping. Today she is 40 and her daughter 18 and the freshly graduated senior still, like her mom, enjoys camping. Nice also is you now have a backup.

Ron

 

Thanks for sharing the results. I have fond memories of taking my daughter camping. Today she is 40 and her daughter 18 and the freshly graduated senior still, like her mom, enjoys camping. Nice also is you now have a backup.

Ron

You're welcome, and that's great to hear about camping. We had a pretty good time, though the heat wasn't the best for her first time (she's 7 BTW). I'm thinking late September may be better (we're in the New Jersey).

I also didn't anticipate the added benefit of 2 lantern. At one point I had the one on inside the tent, while using the other one to light up around the picnic table durning s'more time and clean up.