We have been having warm days here in Southern Idaho of late. This morning, my wife and I were replacing one of the original exterior light fixtures with an LED fixture. Apparently the strobe effect we saw from using an LED bulb is pretty common in enclosed spaces. I have no idea why. It can't be overheating.
These new fixtures I notice are open at the bottom, and are noticeably brighter and whiter than the 60 watt incandescents we had in the old fixtures; they only consume 10 watts. We are having our rotting wood siding replaced with vinyl siding in a week or so. Since they have to take down the exterior light fixtures to do that, we asked if they minded putting up the new fixtures instead. No problem. They use the same wiring and mounting hardware. They don't have the dusk-to-dawn and motion sensor features of the old fixtures, but those really only make sense in places with crime.
Anyway, at 9:00 AM the air temperature was still decent, but direct sunlight made this task on top of a warehouse ladder really unpleasant. I am in my workshop now supervising Millie as she trims down a piece of acetal. (Because acetal is pretty slippery, it sometimes vibrates out of the vise; hence I have to keep it under observation.) I have no A/C in the shop, but there's a nice breeze blowing through the back garage door and out the front garage door and it is quite tolerable.
I had some LED elements flicker when I began replacing interior incandescent bulbs. Eventually, it went away. It didn't happen with all the bulbs. For instance, when I replaced my front porch light (which stays on 24/7/360) it worked immediately. That was 3 years ago, and it still works reliably.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, you
I can't say I much like LED because of the mercury issues, but they seem to provide plenty of light.
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteyou are talking about flourescent (small twisty) bulbs, not the LED's Clayton is using. LED's are solid state elements, sometimes mounted directly on a small circuit board. Mostly all you will see is a very small square object, usually at the base of a reflector/lens. About this { <> } size.
If the acetyl is usually available in a standardized size, perhaps you could design a fixture that would securely hold it in your vice for the required milling. A production shop would do something along this line.
ReplyDeleteMay involve drilling pin location holes in the blocks, and a fixture for that might be a separate item.
The LED's may be driven with a square wave. Voltage can be controlled with pulse width modulation. A lot of led lights like my tactical light and car tail lights are pulsed at a frequency you can see when the light or your eye is moving rapidly.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered making vise jaws with a knurled texture for acetal?