IR LED Lamp angle?

[madkad 0]

I have 2 cameras 1 has 90 IR LED's around it and its great at night as it lights the place up for another one of my standard cameras as well.

 

But 1 of my other cameras only has 18 IR LED's around it and isnt great at night, so i bought a 140 IR LED lamp it is only a 30 degree angle one and I thought that would be ok, but it just lights up about 2 meter section on the camera?

 

Could I open the lamp and angle out the LED's to make the angle bigger?

[madkad 0]

can any one help on this?

[Tailbone215 0]

I have 2 cameras 1 has 90 IR LED's around it and its great at night as it lights the place up for another one of my standard cameras as well.

 

But 1 of my other cameras only has 18 IR LED's around it and isnt great at night, so i bought a 140 IR LED lamp it is only a 30 degree angle one and I thought that would be ok, but it just lights up about 2 meter section on the camera?

 

Could I open the lamp and angle out the LED's to make the angle bigger?

 

The lens built into each LED usually determines angle of radiation. You might be able to open up the fixture and bend a curve in the PC board, but it might not yield much more width.

 

What I would do if distance isn't a major factor is to cut a piece of fluorescent light fixture grid, the clear diamond pattern, and put that in front of the LEDs, preferably inside the fixture. This will diffuse the light a great deal and remove any hotspots. You'll probably have near 180 degrees of radiation.

[madkad 0]

I have 2 cameras 1 has 90 IR LED's around it and its great at night as it lights the place up for another one of my standard cameras as well.

 

But 1 of my other cameras only has 18 IR LED's around it and isnt great at night, so i bought a 140 IR LED lamp it is only a 30 degree angle one and I thought that would be ok, but it just lights up about 2 meter section on the camera?

 

Could I open the lamp and angle out the LED's to make the angle bigger?

 

The lens built into each LED usually determines angle of radiation. You might be able to open up the fixture and bend a curve in the PC board, but it might not yield much more width.

 

What I would do if distance isn't a major factor is to cut a piece of fluorescent light fixture grid, the clear diamond pattern, and put that in front of the LEDs, preferably inside the fixture. This will diffuse the light a great deal and remove any hotspots. You'll probably have near 180 degrees of radiation.

 

thanks for your reply, do you think that will spread the light and still light up the section I am after, or could it defuse it to much?

 

My cam with the 90 LED'S lights up a massive place, what is the differrence in LED'S?

[tweak'e 0]

there can be big differences in led's. output of the individual led can vary depending on make/model, then what the quality is like. also how hard its driven. some will under drive them to make sure they last while others will over drive them to make them brighter.

don't forget IR is often split into two different wave lengths. AFAIK the ones that glow lightly red work better with cameras but of course are not totally invisible.

 

might pay to stick an amp meter on the led and see what its really doing. a guesstimate on efficiency should give you an idea on what output it really has.

[tomcctv 189]

can any one help on this?

 

can you post a pic of your lamp ??

[Tailbone215 0]

thanks for your reply, do you think that will spread the light and still light up the section I am after, or could it defuse it to much?

 

My cam with the 90 LED'S lights up a massive place, what is the differrence in LED'S?

 

 

Yes, it will spread the light and do a good at it. Not knowing the scope of what you're trying to do, the specs of the IR emitter, and at what distance makes it difficult to answer your question. You already have the IR emitter so it would be easy and cheap at this point to go to Home Depot and pick up a defuser and experiment.

[madkad 0]

Thanks for the replies sorry for my slow one, its these

 

 

I have two, so what I did is opened one and i used my soldering iron and angled all the LED'S different I worked round from the centre.

 

I tested this after by plugging it in direct to the lamp and shining it out side, I could see it had spread the light great and it was nice and bright

BUT I have just tested it in with the 20m cable I have placed in the middle of the lamp and the plug, and it isn't bright in any way??

 

Can the wire restrict the current that much?

 

what could I do to deal with it, the plug is 12v 1A can I up anything?

[troep 0]

Wire distance can cause powerdrop. Because of the internal resistance of the cable. A small trick that some guys do (I did it also). When you know how many volts you are losing, just but a slightly bigger power supply on the other end. But only do that if you know what you are doing (like me).

 

But then the less cable you use, the better. You can overdrive your leds by a little of 1 volt without any real harm. But that depends on how the unit was build.

 

When I build these units I keep in mind that dat leds have minimum and maximum values of volts and amps. Amps are something you can't fiddle about. But when a led has a minimum value of 1.2 volt and maximum of 1.8 you can fiddle a bit with the power you put in. But also only when you know what you're doing or you end up with 200+ normal diodes.

[madkad 0]

so I could put a volt meater on the end of the 20m cable and see what the drop in volts is and then add that drop onto the 12v?

 

Lol pain that cos it will now cost more money grrrr

[Sawbones 0]

Thanks for the replies sorry for my slow one, its these

 

 

I have two, so what I did is opened one and i used my soldering iron and angled all the LED'S different I worked round from the centre.

 

I tested this after by plugging it in direct to the lamp and shining it out side, I could see it had spread the light great and it was nice and bright

BUT I have just tested it in with the 20m cable I have placed in the middle of the lamp and the plug, and it isn't bright in any way??

 

Can the wire restrict the current that much?

 

what could I do to deal with it, the plug is 12v 1A can I up anything?

 

I have several of those, purchased from Ebay.

 

They are very narrow-beam, and fine for distance, but hot-spot mercilessly at close range.

 

The power supplies they send with them are also VERY low-quality. Both of mine crapped out the very first night I used them. I'd advise wiring them to a better PSU, or even a proper alarm/camera PSU. 12VDC is 12VDC... unless you have so much line loss that it drops your voltage.

 

You have three options. Use more voltage at the head-end (feed it 13VDC at the head-end to compensate for line loss), use a thicker-gauge power cable (less resistance = less power loss), or use a local PSU to power the camera.

[troep 0]

@Madkad: Yes But if your illuminator runs on 12 volt's. You can just put a 13.8 (or more) volt powersupply and a 7812 voltage regulator on your illuminator. Just find out how many amps your illuminator uses. So you put for example 14 volt's through the cable and the voltage regulator gives of a nice 12 volts to your illuminator.

 

The 7812 package has different current value's 1 to 3 amps is easy to get. Doesn't cost you a fortune. Here in Holland the 3 amps model costs me 2 euro's and then use some capacitators to get a nice stable output. Let's say 2,50 euro's and you're the man