Borg Cube Lighting help

[Mutant-Enemy]

Hello Gents,
I'm hoping someone out there can give me some suggestions on how to wire up some lighting for a project I've been working on now for a number of years off and on.

I started this borg cube a loooong while back and have been collecting greeblies and adding to it bit by bit.

A while ago I came across some EXIT Sign LED reflector Banks
(First photo) that were being pitched in the garbage because the newer styles were coming in.
Nothing is wrong with them,I got a lot of them too and they are GREEN which is perfect for my case.
I want to wire them up so that I have two per side (inside) the cube which is large (Each panel is 23" X 23")
Problem being is I have no idea how to do wiring and I hope someone can help me out with suggestions.

Each reflector bank comes with a plug (pictured last) and I have a lot of these plugs as well.
Anyway, take a look if you have the time and hit me with your suggestions and questions if you will.

 

[Coffee Addict]

Looks like a good idea. I used Christmas lights (all green) with a sequence control. It came out really nice.

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

Thanks for taking a look!
Any suggestions on wiring for me?

 

[Mr.Engineer]

Can you take more pictures of the circuit board connections?

If I am not mistaken, EXIT signs glow green all the time and when there is no electricity, it will use power from the rechargeable battery when the power relay switch over. If that is the case, then we could be looking at a 12 volt D.C. power supply but depending on how the LEDs are arranged (serial and parallel). I am speculating this because the third picture looks like a power connector which is usually associated with connecting a pair of backup batteries to a circuit board.

If you have a lot of those strip, lets try with one and use a 9volt battery. What we need to do is to establish the correct polarity for the LEDs. If they do glow, you got the wiring correct and (if you still have a lot of those LED strips left) now, try with a 12volt battery.

But all this is theory anyway, so get a fire extinguisher ready.

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

Very cool.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I'll see what I can do about getting some more pics up.

 

[exoray]

Since the package says "3 Watts at 120 VAC" I'm guessing they are the primary power on lights running off mains... There is probably a secondary set of LEDs the kick in upon power outage, or they pump up the battery backup to 120 volts...

My guess on how it's laid out (based on a quick count of 90 LEDs is, two pairs of 45 LEDs running out of phase to take full advantage of the AC current... Looking closely at the LEDs it appears they flip polarity from side to side in your picture, this lends towards two out of phase banks... That gives you about 2.67 forward volts per LED from a 120 volt source, pretty much right inline with what super bright green LEDs need and right in line with the 3 watts written on the package broken down giving 25 mA to each LED...

They can still be made to work under smaller battery use but you will almost certainly have to do some splicing and jumpers on the PC boards...

 

[feek61]

I might try just buying a green cold cathode set and be done with it. They are pretty cheap and run off of 12v DC. You can usually pick-up dual 12" tubes for about 6 bucks (they come in different links). You can do a search for them and also get them on ebay. That is what I used here:

 

[Gigatron]

Can you take a picture, face-on of the underside (side with all the pins). From the one picture, it looks like these things may already be wired together, via a PCB - you may only have to supply the power. And if that's the case, it's really simple.

What you'll need to do, is find a power supply (like the one that comes with your cellphone charger or most other plug-in electronics) that meets the listed power ratings (120VAC 3W). Then you can either cut the plug off the lamp side and hardwire it to the supply, or find 2 of the same plugs and splice them in (there are dozens of reputable online electronics vendors where you can get most of this stuff for cheap).

But, if you want run all the panels off a single plug, which is probably the best idea, you'll need to start splicing all the positive leads together and then all the negative leads together until you have a single plug left. Then you'll need someone who remembers more about electronics 101 to tell you your power requirements for a series circuit made up of X number of panels with those volts and wattage.

-Fred

 

[exoray]

What you'll need to do, is find a power supply (like the one that comes with your cellphone charger or most other plug-in electronics) that meets the listed power ratings (120VAC 3W).

In the US this would be a direct plug into the mains, no adapter needed unless current has to be limited at the supply, highly unlikely in this case as the math seems to work out fine...