# LED Spotlight Terminal



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Hi everyone. This is my first full tutorial on HauntForum. I followed this tutorial by Herman Secret to make some LED spotlights however making the spotlights are just half of the battle in my opinion... (BTW, the prewired LEDS are SOOO worth the extra $)

So I came up with this idea and I will show you how to make a terminal for all of your LED lights. Like I said, this is my first tutorial so tell me if I need to clarify anything.

Here is what you will be making:








What you will need:

a wooden craft box (I got mine from Michael's)
speaker wire (you will need it for the LED spotlights anyway)
electrical wire (again, you will need it for the LED spotlights)
liquid electric tape
speaker terminals
adapter (or whatever power source you're using)
assorted small screws
wire caps
black paint

Tools you will need:

a drill or screwdriver
jigsaw
wire cutter/stripper
glue gun (and glue sticks) * optional
a paint brush

*Step 1:* Take the top (smaller side) off of your box. You can set the top aside for now.








*Step 2:* Measure your speaker terminals - mine were about one inch long and one and a half inch wide so I traced out a section that I would eventually cut out. I got my speaker terminals HERE. Since I got 20, they were only $0.58 each. In this step, I also drilled holes in the corners so that I could saw out the rectangles easier.

*Step 3:* Cut out all three sections. Notice that section 3 on the right is smaller because I wanted to fit all the speaker terminals on the box so I did two rows of 7 and one row of 6. Put the sections that you cut out aside for later.








*Step 4:* Paint the top and bottom black.








*Step 5:* Screw the speaker terminals into the board. You can see that I didn't space my rows properly and I only could fit one screw on the last 2 rows... they're still fine and secure... I'm not too worried.








*Step 6:* Turn the box over and fill in any gaps you may have with electrical tape. 

*Step 7:* Next, using spare speaker wire wire the terminals together. You can attach the wire to the terminals by looping the wire through the hook on the back. REMEMBER: Know what side is red and what side is black. I used the copper side on the red terminal side and the silver wire on the black terminal side. I grouped the terminals into groups of four and then connected the groups of four together to the adapter. 








*Step 8:* Use the liquid electrical tape and seal up the loop and wire from the terminal. Put a big dab on top and let it dry overnight. I put on 3 coats of liquid electrical tape just to be sure. I also added a dab of hot glue after the third coat was dry.








*Step 9:* Wire all the groups together to the adapter. I used wire caps to keep the wires together. I also drilled a hole in the side so the adapter chord could go through.








*Step 10:* Screw one of the sections that you cut out to the bottom so that your box will stand up and re-attach the top. Plug it in and you are done! Simply make your spotlights and you can attach the ends to the box! Tonight I will take some pictures of the spotlights in the dark so you can see just how bright they are. Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and Happy Haunting!















Like I said, I will give clarification on any of the above steps.


----------



## MET42 (Nov 9, 2008)

Love it. Thanks for the this thread. This IS a project I will do this year. How did you power the box.


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Hi MET42. I am using a 400ma power supply like this one: http://www.save-on-crafts.com/acadapter.html. Each LED spotlight is 20ma so to power 20 terminals you would need a 400 ma power supply. Since I got 12 Volt LEDS, it also needs to be 12 volt. I think that's what you mean.... if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!


----------



## Xane (Oct 13, 2010)

Here's a clearance regulated (*regulated* is very important or you could blow out all the LEDs by overvoltage spikes) 12v adapter, 2 amp. You'll be sick of soldering before you run out of power for your LEDs.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=129-077


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Xane said:


> Here's a clearance regulated (*regulated* is very important or you could blow out all the LEDs by overvoltage spikes) 12v adapter, 2 amp. You'll be sick of soldering before you run out of power for your LEDs.
> 
> http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=129-077


Hi Xane - So with that adapter, can you put on less than 100 LEDs and it won't blow them out? (Is that what regulated means? haha) I noticed using my old 400amp adapter with only 3 spotlights at one time made the resistors get kinda hot. Thanks so much for this link and I think I'm gonna buy one!


----------



## Xane (Oct 13, 2010)

Regulated means that it keeps a constant voltage. An unregulated supply will only put out that voltage when you draw the same amperage. So if you use a 12v adapter with 400mA but 3 LEDs at 20mA only draw 60mA of the power... your voltage will spike dangerously high, and possibly try to shove 18-24v through the LEDs. However, too high a voltage would make them flash super bright and pretty much immediately kill them afterward so the hot resistors may be due to not using the right wattage. Even if you have the correct amperage draw, an unregulated supply will fluctuate, giving you "dirty power". This is less of a problem for LEDs than it would be if you were powering an amplifier with it, where it would cause hum or buzz in the sound. With a regulated supply it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100 LEDs hooked up as long as you don't go _over_ the maximum amperage.

http://ledcalc.com/ 

will give you the wattage you need on your resistors. But it _could_ still be due to an unregulated supply giving a higher, but not terminally higher voltage. You could also try using a higher wattage than needed... this won't hurt anything as long as your ohms are correct.

If you have a multimeter/voltmeter, use it to test the adapter without anything else hooked up to it. If it goes to 12v and holds steady (or gives something like 11.8-12.2v and holds steady... cheaper regulated supplies might not be regulated 100% perfectly) your supply is regulated. If the dial swings wildly and finally settles on something like 16v or higher, it's not regulated.


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Xane said:


> Regulated means that it keeps a constant voltage. An unregulated supply will only put out that voltage when you draw the same amperage. So if you use a 12v adapter with 400mA but 3 LEDs at 20mA only draw 60mA of the power... your voltage will spike dangerously high, and possibly try to shove 18-24v through the LEDs. However, too high a voltage would make them flash super bright and pretty much immediately kill them afterward so the hot resistors may be due to not using the right wattage. Even if you have the correct amperage draw, an unregulated supply will fluctuate, giving you "dirty power". This is less of a problem for LEDs than it would be if you were powering an amplifier with it, where it would cause hum or buzz in the sound. With a regulated supply it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100 LEDs hooked up as long as you don't go _over_ the maximum amperage.
> 
> http://ledcalc.com/
> 
> ...


Okay, thanks - I'm definitely gonna get the adapter you posted above. Thanks again for all of your info!


----------



## Nepboard (Sep 21, 2009)

Nice post! Keeping everything organized is always a challenge.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Just bought all the parts I need to tackle this one. Finally something I can do after I get home from the office that doesn't involve the use of power tools!


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Out of curiosity, can you plug multiple speaker wires into the terminals, i.e. run 4 lights off one red & black terminal. I'm wondering if it'll work like it would with stereo speakers.

If it can, then you could (in theory) create 1 terminal and plug all of your lights into that one terminal.


----------



## Fatman (Sep 9, 2008)

I was broke and opted to make a simple terminal.

A piece of wood with 2 bolts through it.
The supply wires are wrapped around the bottom.
All the wires end in ring terminals. I just put the wires on the appropriate bolts then
finger tighten the nuts on top.

Wrap the whole thing in a plastic bag, inside a tupperware container, under a tombstone.
I'm only running a dozen lights so nothing too bad.


----------



## Xane (Oct 13, 2010)

I think it would be easier to use a screw terminal strip:

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/TS-210/10-POSITION-DUAL-ROW-STRIP-20-AMP/1.html

And power plugs:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=110&cp_id=11009#1100903

And a (regulated) AC adapter. I guess if you have USB parts lying around you can use them but it would be horribly expensive to get any decent kind of length with USB cables. Even on discount sites like Monoprice a 16' cable is a couple of bucks, while 100' of 18 gauge speaker wire is about $10-15. And USB hubs are (relatively) expensive too, even the generic ones with questionable voltages.


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Xane said:


> I think it would be easier to use a screw terminal strip:
> 
> http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/TS-210/10-POSITION-DUAL-ROW-STRIP-20-AMP/1.html
> 
> ...


Xane, I didn't see this until after I made my terminal, but still - I prefer the plug and "play-ness" of the speaker terminals... Either way, its great to help for the LED spots...



Dminor said:


> Out of curiosity, can you plug multiple speaker wires into the terminals, i.e. run 4 lights off one red & black terminal. I'm wondering if it'll work like it would with stereo speakers.
> 
> If it can, then you could (in theory) create 1 terminal and plug all of your lights into that one terminal.


Dminor, I don't see why you can't put more than one LED to a terminal... So in theory, ya I goes you could have 1 terminal and put all your lights into that one. Of course, the size of all the wires together might be too big... But you could definitely only have say 10 terminals but use 20 or 30 LEDS...


----------



## Xane (Oct 13, 2010)

Hallowennie315 said:


> Xane, I didn't see this until after I made my terminal, but still - I prefer the plug and "play-ness" of the speaker terminals... Either way, its great to help for the LED spots...


I think I replied to the wrong thread  I could have sworn I looked back through the thread and saw another yet post about using a USB hub to run LEDs (which I always found cool but rather limited). I agree that speaker terminals are good for this too, plus they're color coded!



Hallowennie315 said:


> Dminor, I don't see why you can't put more than one LED to a terminal... So in theory, ya I goes you could have 1 terminal and put all your lights into that one. Of course, the size of all the wires together might be too big... But you could definitely only have say 10 terminals but use 20 or 30 LEDS...


Yeah, LEDs draw so little power you don't have to worry about "overloading" a terminal. Just strip a little more of the wires and twist them together so it doesn't matter if it makes full contact with one or the other.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Parts have finally arrived. I can't wait to get started!!!

The downside is that I pulled a 17.5 hour day yesterday and a 16 hour day the day before, so I'm running out of steam! I don't want to screw up, so I think I may wait until I've gotten some rest to get started.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

O.k....so I couldn't wait. Plus I got my second wind. So I went ahead and routed out the 8"x4" project box to allow for the speaker terminal pins to pass thru. I picked this particular model because of the mounting flange on the side. I don't have any mounting plans for it at the moment, but in the future I may just build some sort of master control box and will mount it at that point.

Here's where we're at:









Now I just need to find some screws to keep the speaker terminals in there nice and tight and then it's on to wiring.


----------



## MET42 (Nov 9, 2008)

Looks great! Can you take a picture of the project box with out the terminals on? I would like to see your router job and what you took out. I am thinking of doing this project.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Sure! Here ya go...










As you can see, my routing isn't that great (using a dremel tool on plastic can be a pain due to the plastic melting during the routing process), but I only needed 1/8" X 1" space to allow for the posts to slide through to the inside of the project box. The upside is that the uneven slots are hidden by the base of the speaker terminals, so my less than perfect routing will never be seen!


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

The more I think about how convenient this project will be for setting up my lighting, the more I see a company stealing Hallowennie315's idea and making them for consumers for next halloween.


----------



## MET42 (Nov 9, 2008)

Your routing is fine. Thanks for the picture and look forward to the progress of your tirminal. Where did you get your project box from?


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

I found it on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Project-Box-ABS-Plastic-Cover-8-85-x4-44-x2-48-1-/380357917573?pt=BI_Electrical_Equipment_Tools&hash=item588f193b85#ht_1752wt_1165

The seller has 10 available as of this message.


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Dminor said:


> The more I think about how convenient this project will be for setting up my lighting, the more I see a company stealing Hallowennie315's idea and making them for consumers for next halloween.


Its fine if they take and manufacture my idea... IF they pay me first  (I wish!)


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Just had another thought. I was thinking that rather than hard wiring the box, I'd just mount a plug in the wall of the box and that would be connected to the wires inside the box. 

That being said, could you wire the terminals in a big loop? Ie. positive post of terminal 1 to positive post on terminal 2, then 3 and then back to 1 (and the same with the negative posts) and then the power cord is connected to the pos and neg posts on terminal 1.


----------



## MET42 (Nov 9, 2008)

I would think you could wire the box as you said. You could just run the power cord straight into the box to the wires.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

While I was drawing this up I realized that I may not need to create a big link. So this is what I was thinking, just to be 100% clear (before I wire these all up and blow each and every LED that I bought LOL)










Sounds do-able? I would think that as long as there is power that originates at the first terminal and is passed from one terminal to the next that it would work correctly. But then again, I'm not an electrician.


----------



## MET42 (Nov 9, 2008)

Or you can take what they call a pigtail from each terminal and connect them together along with the power supply. I am not good and drawing so I will try to explain. You would take a piece of red wire from each terminal + side and wire nut them together along with the red wire from your power supply, You then do the same with the black – wire. It is basically the same as you have it but if something happens with one of the terminal and it goes out, everything after that terminal will go out too.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Yeah, that's what Hallowennie315 did in the original tutorial. I just thought that there might be another way to do it that would allow for less connections or at least a little more organized.


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

MET42 said:


> Or you can take what they call a pigtail from each terminal and connect them together along with the power supply. I am not good and drawing so I will try to explain. You would take a piece of red wire from each terminal + side and wire nut them together along with the red wire from your power supply, You then do the same with the black – wire. It is basically the same as you have it but if something happens with one of the terminal and it goes out, everything after that terminal will go out too.


Hey MET42,
I'm not that big of an electrician so I don't know that much about LEDs, I do think however that I remember reading where it isn't a good idea to "daisy chain" the lights together like that - (like Dminor's great graphic)... but like I said, I'm not 100% certain... That's why I used the method I did...


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Gotcha. Just did a quick google search and I guess it's bad to wire LEDs in serial connection, but parallel is ok (which is how I illustrated it - completely by coincidence!).

At any rate, I'm going to be the guinea pig for the rest of you and we'll see how this goes. I still have to mount the terminals. 

Ugh! So much to do, so little time!!!!!


----------



## MET42 (Nov 9, 2008)

I did not know that about LED. Thanks for the info. I think your idea is the best way then Dminor on wiring the LEDs.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

EUREKA!

I'm happy to report that the wiring "diagram" that I posted above works! Additionally, I'll say that sanding your LEDs makes ALL the difference in the world. 

I did a test wiring tonight by just twisting the wires to the terminal and then using some wire nuts to connect the 12v power supply (just to be extra careful!) and voila, it worked!

Now I have a lot of wiring to do. I'm going to try and use a hot glue gun to connect the wires to the terminals (because I suck at soldering) to help speed up the process.

I did have a question though for any of you who have done a LED project. Did you find that the resistors in the LEDs warmed up a little bit? I want to make sure that I don't burn out the lights, so I figured I'd ask.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

whoops. double posted


----------



## Xane (Oct 13, 2010)

What was the wattage on your resistors? It may be too low. It's normal for them to get warm, but not "not quite painful to touch but still pretty hot"


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

They came with the resistors already connected. The LED's are hot by any means, just warm enough to notice. I just wanted to be sure.


----------



## daddywoofdawg[email protected] (Oct 9, 2008)

do I want a 12VAC Adapter or DC to run led's?


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Argh! I soldered all my terminals and the hot glued the connections to seal them up and now 6 of the 9 terminals are dead. Too many other projects in the works to unglue them, so I'll just have to run them off of the three terminals. Thankfully it works in a manner that allows me to do that.

A word to the wise, the method for connecting your power that Hallowennie used is the better solution. Had I done it that way, it would have saved me from having this problem. But instead I lose my power at the one terminal that has a faulty connection.


----------



## Xane (Oct 13, 2010)

You could take a length of wire and stick it into the front of one of the working and dead terminals. That way you have more room for the LED wires instead of having too many stuck in one terminal where they may come loose.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Ok, after a bit of research I found that isopropyl alcohol weakens hot glue, and so I was able to remove the hot glue from the faulty terminals. Will be rewiring this evening, but thought I'd share the tip.


----------



## Hallowennie315 (Oct 9, 2008)

Dminor said:


> I found it on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Project-Box-ABS-Plastic-Cover-8-85-x4-44-x2-48-1-/380357917573?pt=BI_Electrical_Equipment_Tools&hash=item588f193b85#ht_1752wt_1165
> 
> The seller has 10 available as of this message.


After making more spotlights, I decided that the next time I do this (If I ever re-do it...) I will make one terminal that will send out power to the other terminals and make several terminal blocks that have say 5 - 6 terminals on it... That way the wire off of the spotlights isn't too long...

Thanks for taking in intreset in my idea and I'd love to see pictures or hear suggestions!


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Hallowennie315 said:


> After making more spotlights, I decided that the next time I do this (If I ever re-do it...) I will make one terminal that will send out power to the other terminals and make several terminal blocks that have say 5 - 6 terminals on it... That way the wire off of the spotlights isn't too long...
> 
> Thanks for taking in intreset in my idea and I'd love to see pictures or hear suggestions!


That's a really good idea too. Basically making "satellite" terminals that allow you to run 1-2 long power cables and then a handful of shorter ones.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Lets resurrect this thread for an update. Mainly because I'm up early and another thread had me looking for a link to this one to explain how I setup my lighting.


Last year I wired all of my LED terminals in parallel and (due to my bad soldering skills and over zealous use of hot glue) ended up with only 3 terminals working. 

A SIDE NOTE: In the end, it wasn't a big deal because LEDs have such low power consumption that you could group all of your spots and connect them to one terminal and it would work just as well.

This year I started planning and building in February, so I had more than enough time to revisit this project, tear it apart and correct my mistakes. Plus I learned how to solder and have had some time to practice.


HERE'S WHAT'S DIFFERENT: This time around, I wired all of the terminals in serial. I decided to do it that way so that if one of the connection points dies, they don't all die, which was the issue with the box last year. Additionally, I prewired and pre tinned(soldered) all of the speaker connections first before putting them into the enclosure. This kept me from having to fight with everything being in a tiny box (I have big hands, it was a real pain last year) and allowed me to easily connect everything with just a bit of heat from the tip of the soldering iron.

Lastly, I screwed in all of the speaker terminals to the project box. This just made the whole thing that much more secure and durable feeling. It was an absolute must and hot glue was too messy and didn't hold up to the year of being in storage either.

LAST THOUGHTS: Make yourself some room above each connection so that you can label what is plugged into that connector. You could also tag each set of wires. This can be extremely helpful in troubleshooting. 

Tin or add connectors (like these) to the end of your speaker wires. It will make plugging them in that much easier. 

If you decide to use a project box, you may want to consider getting a box that's big enough to fit the power supply inside it. It just helps to keep everything together so that come Halloween of 2013 you're not wondering where that other part of your power supply is. It also makes it easier to fit your spotlight terminal inside another box if you need to weatherproof it, like I did.

So that's where we're at one year later.

Thanks again to Hallowennie315 for the brilliant idea. It makes my setup that much easier!


----------



## untillater (Oct 3, 2011)

Dminor said:


> Gotcha. Just did a quick google search and I guess it's bad to wire LEDs in serial connection, but parallel is ok (which is how I illustrated it - completely by coincidence!).
> 
> At any rate, I'm going to be the guinea pig for the rest of you and we'll see how this goes. I still have to mount the terminals.
> 
> Ugh! So much to do, so little time!!!!!





MET42 said:


> I did not know that about LED. Thanks for the info. I think your idea is the best way then Dminor on wiring the LEDs.


and edit as i need to learn to read, my bad.

Actually, your drawing was for PARALLEL (1.5v in image) and would be the same as doing the pigtails electrically. For serial (6v in image), think of batteries, pos - neg, pos - neg, and so on.

I know the image is for power/batteries, but it is the same for load


----------



## GodOfThunder (Aug 26, 2011)

Quick question: how do you actually connect the terminal wiring harness ends to the actual power supply?


----------



## DawnDead (Jun 20, 2008)

GodOfThunder said:


> Quick question: how do you actually connect the terminal wiring harness ends to the actual power supply?



Look at the picture in the post above and imagine the batteries are the points where you connect each LED. Now on the ends (where you see the up/down arrow in the picture) connect the positive side of your power supply to the positive side and the negative side of the power supply to the negative side. You can either solder your connections or use wire nuts to do this. It's the same whether you are doing parallel (top pic) or serial (bottom pic). Hope that helps.


----------



## Dminor (Jul 21, 2006)

Take the pos and neg ends of your wire and using wire nuts, connect the power supply to the wires.


----------

