DIY Friday: LED Pegboard

We’re all about holidays here at ReallyRocketScience. Yesterday, we commemorated the Explorer 1 launch 50 years ago. Today, we celebrate the DIY-Friday from one year ago – LED light shirts. The beauty of LED’s is that they never burn out. My cheesy shirt is still functioning perfect for the occasional ugly sweater theme party.

Now LED’s are hitting Saks Fifth Avenue – on the store’s facade, not the clothes racks:

This Christmas, Royal Philips Electronics (PHG) is vividly displaying its dominance in the lighting market. It supplied the 50 giant illuminated snowflakes that festoon the front of the flagship Saks Fifth Avenue (SKS) store in New York. The flakes are aglow with light-emitting diodes, or LEDs–semiconductor devices that produce bright beams of light using a fraction as much electricity as incandescent bulbs. The 40,000-plus LEDs in the display sip about the same amount of power as three toaster ovens.

Philips also will provide the lights for the New Year’s Eve Times Square Ball in New York. Instead of 600 incandescent and halogen bulbs, the ball will be fitted with more than 9,500 LEDs, which burn twice as brightly and can create a palette of 16 million colors. Depending on their hue, they’ll be up to 98% more energy-efficient than the bulbs they replace.

The demonstration is a symbolic blow to its main LED rival – GE:

Philips’ latest LED installations give the company much-coveted green bragging rights. Lighting accounts for about one-fifth of all electricity used, in part because, with traditional incandescent bulbs, most of the energy is wasted in heat. LEDs burn cooler and last much longer. So the company that leads in this area can claim to be helping planet earth.

General Electric (GE), Philips’ biggest rival in lighting, has spent millions to bolster its own environmental credentials in a high-profile campaign whose slogan is "ecomagination." But it hasn’t matched the billions of dollars Philips has spent on LEDs and other energy-efficient lighting systems. This year alone, Philips has paid $4.2 billion to acquire five companies in the lighting sector, including the Nov. 26 purchase of Genlyte (GLYT) in Louisville, the No.2 U.S. maker of lighting fixtures. As a result, Philips has vaulted past GE as the leading supplier of lights and fixtures in the all-important U.S. market.

Over the next ten years, as much of the world makes the transition to LED lights, Philips’ lead over GE is expected to grow. "A building contractor can go to Philips and get everything he wants," says Janardan Menon, a financial analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in London. The same, he argues, is not true for GE.

It won’t be long before LED’s cross-over from Fifth Avenue to the home. Get started by buying some LED candles.

Or, better yet, take up our DIY-challenge: construct "Peggy," a light emitting pegboard kit:

Our light-emitting pegboard display, affectionately known as "Peggy," provides a quick, easy, powerful and efficient way to drive a lot of LEDs– up to 625– in a big matrix covering almost a square foot of area. You can make an LED sign for your window, a geeky valentine for your sweetie, one bad-ass birthday card, or freak the holy bejesus out of Boston. Your call. It’s a versatile, high-brightness display. How you configure it and what you do with it is up to you.

The display can run off batteries (3 ‘D’ cells) or an optional ac adapter, and is designed to drive as many green/blue/white/violet LEDs as you care to solder into the holes, all with excellent brightness. The board can accommodate LEDs in several common sizes: 3mm, 5 mm (standard T-1 3/4 size), and 10 mm. A photosensor is provided that can automatically turn off the display in bright daylight or incandescent light.

Instructions are available here. The good news is you have two weeks to construct your Valentine’s Day surprise creation. Or build a LED-shirt, version 2 – I’m sure he/she will love the gesture. I told you we liked holidays here at ReallyRocketScience.