The New Hotness

The COB LED module claims to run at 12 V and 6 W, so it expects to draw 500 mA. First pass measurements showed 500 mA happened at 11.6 V:

The 12 VDC supply actually produced 12.1 V at 500 mA, so a 1 Ω 1/2 W resistor should produce the right current:

Which it did, but the Customer Base judged 6 W to be far too much light. A 2.7 Ω resistor seemed too dim, so we settled on 2.2 Ω:

For the record, a 2.2 Ω resistor drops 980 mV and dissipates 440 mW, probably too close to its 500 mW rating. The supply produces 12.2 VDC at 450 mA, so the LEDs run at 11.2 V and dissipate 5 W; the heatsink remains pleasantly warm to the touch.

The hot melt glue anchoring the pin header won’t win any prizes, but it sticks like glue to the Kapton tape and, in any event, there’s not much to go wrong in there.

A cardboard cover hides the ugly details:

And then It Just Works™:

As evidenced by the glove fingertips, she does a lot of sewing and I’m glad I can shed some light on the subject …