Green front LED lights

kwackers · Post by **kwackers** » 1 Oct 2008, 1:25pm

cranky wrote:Have you tried their 3W leds and did they work well ?

The only leds I've not used in that list are the 10w one's. The 3w ones are good - I think the lenses they sell clip directly to these - I've used the lenses too, they're a lot easier than trying to make your own reflectors...

Overall I've spent around £600 on parts from Sure and haven't had a single problem (or faulty component). Check of course to make sure you can't buy the parts cheaper elsewhere (occasionally you can).

I've used the RGB hi intensity LED's to make some nifty mood room lighting - although you need a microcontroller to do anything useful with them (I tend to use PIC's).

cranky · Post by **cranky** » 1 Oct 2008, 1:41pm

kwackers wrote:Overall I've spent around £600 on parts from Sure and haven't had a single problem (or faulty component). Check of course to make sure you can't buy the parts cheaper elsewhere (occasionally you can).

Good to know, I was a bit concerned that they might not be up to Luxeon (branded) quality.

kwackers wrote:I've used the RGB hi intensity LED's to make some nifty mood room lighting - although you need a microcontroller to do anything useful with them (I tend to use PIC's).

I use PICs too, with the Sworfish compiler, not that I'm planning a boogie bike

kwackers · Post by **kwackers** » 1 Oct 2008, 1:59pm

cranky wrote:Good to know, I was a bit concerned that they might not be up to Luxeon (branded) quality.

It's a difficult call - I've a pair of 5W luxeons in my commercial light and comparing it to the Sure one's I couldn't see any difference, at least not that couldn't be explained away by differences in the reflectors.

I use PICs too, with the Sworfish compiler, not that I'm planning a boogie bike

I'd never heard of that, had to look it up.
I program mainly in C and assembler, I used to use Hisoft C, but recently moved over to Mikroelectronika. In particular I love their development kit/boards and their C compiler has pretty extensive libraries (they also do basic and some others) All that time I used to spend poking wires into a breadboard... Pretty much a thing of the past now.

cranky · Post by **cranky** » 1 Oct 2008, 2:06pm

I use the Mikroelectronika developement board with MPLab and Sworfish. I don't much like the Mikroelectronika compilers although I've used them on small projects. If Mikroelectronika would open up their libraries I might reconsider.

kwackers · Post by **kwackers** » 1 Oct 2008, 2:23pm

cranky wrote:I use the Mikroelectronika developement board with MPLab and Sworfish. I don't much like the Mikroelectronika compilers although I've used them on small projects. If Mikroelectronika would open up their libraries I might reconsider.

I'm curious why you don't like the compiler? Is it just an openess issue of the libraries?

A lot of the libs I have my own versions of - all the commons stuff, button reads, seven segment, lcd drivers etc - since I wrote these in day dot.

But I find them handy for the more complex stuff I can't be bothered figuring the hardware out for - USB, CAN and CF, SD stuff.

I don't think the final code is as fast as the Hisoft stuff - but then given £1k for the Hisoft compliler compared to £100 for the Mikroelectronica one - I'd sooner ramp the clock up a bit, and if it's really a problem there's always ASM...

cranky · Post by **cranky** » 1 Oct 2008, 2:30pm

kwackers wrote:I'm curious why you don't like the compiler? Is it just an openess issue of the libraries

Just that. I like to have the libraries open so I can fix bugs and learn how the devices were programmed. Libraries (to me) are as much about learning as using. Closed libraries means I don't have that opportunity.

kwackers · Post by **kwackers** » 1 Oct 2008, 2:34pm

cranky wrote:
kwackers wrote:I'm curious why you don't like the compiler? Is it just an openess issue of the libraries

Just that. I like to have the libraries open so I can fix bugs and learn how the devices were programmed. Libraries (to me) are as much about learning as using. Closed libraries means I don't have that opportunity.

I spend all day working with projects containing 20million + lines of code, I'm absolutely made up when libraries just work and don't need me to fiddle with them. :lol:

(Not on PIC's I should mention :shock:

)

cranky · Post by **cranky** » 1 Oct 2008, 2:59pm

kwackers wrote:
cranky wrote:
kwackers wrote:I'm curious why you don't like the compiler? Is it just an openess issue of the libraries

Just that. I like to have the libraries open so I can fix bugs and learn how the devices were programmed. Libraries (to me) are as much about learning as using. Closed libraries means I don't have that opportunity.

I spend all day working with projects containing 20million + lines of code, I'm absolutely made up when libraries just work and don't need me to fiddle with them.

(Not on PIC's I should mention )

Unfortunately, all you need is a new die mask for a component and the library that worked yesterday doesn't work today. Different, of course, when accessing maths and graphics libraries but device drivers can be a b....