Reddit reviews iCreating 10 Male + 10 Female DC Connector Plug, 12V 5.5 X 2.1mm Barrel Power Jack Adapter Connector for CCTV Security Camera, LED Strip Light, DVR, Car Rearview Monitor System Video
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Package includes: 10pcs DC male connector and 10pcs DC female connectorWith bluecell cable tie on end, barrel connector to screw terminal adapterConnector: 5.5 X 2.1mm barrel DCPlug and play, easy for connectionWork for CCTV security camera and LED strips
I am also a neophyte, but have made several diy grow lights recently. Take everything I write with giant grains of salt.
You can buy a CXB3590 (3500 K, 36VDC) for $38 from digikey. An LED holder from newark ( http://www.newark.com/ideal/50-2303cr/led-holder-cree-cxa35-cob-array/dp/39X0077 ) runs about $3. You can buy a 900mA driver for it off amazon for $11 ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSANIYC ). You can buy a household AC box and a light switch for about $5 from home depot. Scrounge a PC AC cable, some wire for the DC side, some solder. Dig through old electronics for a good heat sink, a fan. Ask some computer folks for thermal paste.
That would bring you close to $50.
From that you can make a 30W led light, I think get over 5000 lumens, and it'd probably be pretty good quality, and not terribly dangerous.
For the AC side, do everything in the electrical box, and make sure it's grounded. Random stuff happens, don't let it happen to you. Electrical shock sucks, but poorly done AC wiring stuff could get hot, start a fire, so putting it in a box is a must. And it's really nice to have a the AC switch. You could simplify, leave out the switch, and use wire nuts, but it's still absolutely necessary to do that in a box and ground that box.
On the DC side, I used these barrel connectors ( https://www.amzn.com//B06Y4YXRMC ) with the wiring to the LED. It's also nice. EDIT: I don't know what these connectors are rated for, but they seemed pretty sturdy.
Sorry, again, I have some electronics background, but I'm new to lighting, so it's foolish of me to even comment.
Yes, you should just make sure that the charger is rated for the current you'll draw. There are plenty of options for using the barrel connector. I keep a bunch of these guys around to power things. What kind of laptop uses a 5V charger?
I'll try to remember to take some pictures tonight but here's the basics:
Parts:
So what you're going to do is cut the connector off of the fan. Strip the wires back. Some fans have three or four wires. Mine had three. What you're looking for is the positive and negative wires which are most likely red and black. Strip the insulation on these wires to expose the bare copper. It sometimes helps to expose enough to fold the copper and double it up to make it easier to screw on the connector. Feed the red wire (positive) into the + side of one of the female connectors. Screw it down and do the same for the other side. Now just connect it to the power supply and you're done!
Thanks :)
You could write sequences easily enough, and in fact it would be relatively trivial to fire them off spontaneously with simple pushbuttons as input to your microcontroller. When I put that costume together, I wore a little custom switchboard like a watch that had the arduino installed on it along with a series of pushbuttons and rocker switches to turn things on and off.
Syncing to music directly might be tough - certainly doable, but it may just be easier to have buttons which perform preprogrammed actions. There are a lot of ways things could go awry when trying to line up audio with circuits. For professional shows it's better to have an engineer or two (on further viewing, it looks like they had 3 guys manning this in the show) on the sidelines controlling all that stuff, but if it's just you a simpler and more adaptable route might be to program 8 or so actions, wire buttons from the arduino to your fingertips to fire them off, and rely on your own timing and coordination to get things really moving. Just a suggestion to avoid overcomplicating things, and using such a technique also allows you to be a bit more adaptable (say, for example, if you want to use the surrounding music like at a club as opposed to needing your own).
Also /u/Tinkrr2 is right about the voltage requirements varying by brand - make sure you look into that. Finally, if you're looking to make this into a semi-permanent hobby then it helps to have an adjustable power supply handy. A beefy battery, a sizable power supply, a few barrel jacks, some Dupont connectors, and most importantly an adjustable buck converter will take you very far. I wouldn't worry too much about any of this now, but if you decide you like tinkering with electronics (especially LEDs, which have moderate power requirements) that would be a terrific start.