Odd lighting question

[jaylach]

@Magnum Man : Be careful with the black light. One of the reasons I went with a purple bulb in my end table lamp instead of a black light is that the ultra violet of a black light can damage a fish eye to the point of even blinding.

That aside my 25 watt purple bulb showed up today. It is OK but, even at just 25 watt it still seems too bright for what I want. I'll have to keep my eye open for a 10-15 watt bulb. Things aren't really as bright as in the photo but not real far off.

 

[jaylach]

I started playing with some nylon mesh I happen to have as a filter and this is the result with three layers of mesh. Not perfect but, I think, better. Since the bulb is LED, and puts out almost no heat, I see no issue having this mesh around the bulb.

 

[Magnum Man]

My bulbs are all several few away from the tanks… thinking it will be ok for a couple hours is all they are on…

Looks good with the filtered light ( sorry about the pun )

 

[Magnum Man]

We’ll my powered USB ports are giving me mixed results… so far I bought one with 4 USB’s and one with more 8 or 10… I don’t have every port filled on the big one, and it appears to be at max power it can handle as each morning when the lights come on… 4 of them shut off at the lights switch… if I turn them back on, the same 4 go off again a few minutes later…

I have the intensity on brightest… so after they all went off again the 2nd time… I restarted them one by one and put the brightness on the lowest setting… they have all been on for a half hour, so that seems to be a temporary fix

I think I may have to put extra power strips up, and go back to the single usb / 110 volt plugs that came with the lights…

 

[jaylach]

Makes me wonder what the lights are actually drawing. Just because they use a USB port does not mean that they draw the same as say a USB on a computer.

 

[jaylach]

This came back to mind and I MAY have an idea...

USB only puts out a limited amount of power to ports. USB works through internal controllers/hubs with each normally handling two ports. If you connect outputs that require power to ports next to each other they will be drawing from the same controller/hub. Try only using every other port which may result in less power being drawn from each internal controller/hub. May make a difference but may not...

 

[Magnum Man]

it has been working on the lower intensity setting on the lights... so you are probably right, maybe every other plug, I may be able to raise the intensity again ???

 

[jaylach]

it has been working on the lower intensity setting on the lights... so you are probably right, maybe every other plug, I may be able to raise the intensity again ???

Can't say for fact whether it will work or not but is worth a try.

 

[jaylach]

Seems that using every other USB port MAY be the answer. Should have added this to my above post but just didn't think of it...

I have a 7 port USB powered hub that powers the external DVD burner and mouse/keyboard dongle for my micro computer. The hub also powers two LED light strips along my electronics wall wall. At first the lights were fine but then one started shutting off and/or changing colors. I took my own advice and separated the power leads to the lights to ports on each end of the hub and have had no problem since doing.

I really don't get 7 port hubs as normally ports are setup in pairs so an odd number doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. The only thing that I can figure is that one of the ports gets full power where the power would normally be split between two ports.

Actually I have two such 7 port hubs. The other lives under my 'easy chair' and powers the lights for my coffee table along with my surround sound headset and my game pad.