What's the easiest way to mount a bunch of surface mount LEDs into an array or spotlight?
There are a bunch of very interesting new papers on red light therapy for a variety of conditions. I want to experiment with it. The most beneficial spectrum is around 650nm. I can't seem to find any bulbs that come ready made with the ~650nm LEDs in them. If you know otherwise, please speak up.
So I figure I can get thirty or so of these Phillips "deep red" LEDs, mount them parallel, and connect to a suitable power supply:
I'd like to avoid having to solder them on to stripboard or something like that. Partly because I've never worked with SMD and haven't soldered in many years. Can anyone think of an easy way to mount them?
There are a bunch of LED spotlights that come with white LEDs already installed:
Is there a way to get the fixtures without the LEDs? Should it be easy to remove the white LEDs and refit the Phillips red LEDs? I don't have any experience with such things.
Best Answer
Yea, you can mount them on a circuit board just like everything else. The Phillips LEDs you link are meant to be mounted on a circuit board that is well cooled (heatsink and/or fan) as these are high-power, specifically ~750mW for red.
There are similar LEDs called Luxeon Rebel which look strikingly similar to those phillips ones which you can buy breakout boards that don't have any of them mounted already. I believe they are sold by sparkfun.com
Since your application sounds like it is targeted at a specific area, the solution needs to be compact. You'll need to design a circuit board and get it fabricated. You'll need to be able to draw all the heat away from the board since you'll be keeping it on for 15 minutes. This means a wicked heatsink and a beastly fan which mean this won't be the most silent device.