IR light rope

Left Coast Geek

Left Coast Geek

Getting comfortable
May 20, 2021
395
401
mid-left coast
is there such a thing as IR light rope? somethign that could be put behind a diffuser along a wall or fence line, and provide even illumination across the field of several cameras?

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this was a 1 m long RGB analog dimmable light I hooked up in the camper shell on my Tacoma, so I could use dim red light on astronomy nights and any color or brightness I wanted on any other night. The kid that bought that truck probably didn't realize how cool that was.
 
here's how the wiring side of was when I first hooked it up. the three sliders are RED, GREEN, BLUE. push all three up together for white. or just the rearmost one barely above 0 for astro dark red.

it rocked. I haven't gotten around to reproducing it for my F250

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StefanB said:
Indeed there is. Since you're an ocean away from me I doubt if my supplier could help you though!
These ones on Amazon aren't waterresistant (you said fence?) but I'm sure if you scratch around a bit you'll find some.
Click to expand...

ah, cool, you can put that stuff in a plastic tube and seal the ends. my kid decorated his 5 ton 6x6 Burning Man art truck with RGB addressable LEDs doing complex light patterns in white nylon hose.
heh, there's about 8000 watts of Crown amps on that truck feeding some serious pro PA speakers, 15" 3-way mains, and dual 18" subs, 2 each. as someone who has been to many 100s of live concerts and shows, it punches hard and sounds clean and good, it is all powered by a 7000W diesel inverter-generator mounted where the army toolbox was.

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we are all stardust

M925A1 5 ton 6x6, converted to "Stardust, the cosmic whale". that top deck is almost 12 feet off the ground, and rock steady and can hold 100 folks dancing while it patrols the desert at night. or act as a stage.
 
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I have a background of doing animated Christmas light displays.
Thread on another forum:
Someone asked about UV addressable strip. The manufacture said they would swap out the white LEDs for UV ones. (This was about an RGBW addressable strip).

I reckon, ask a seller on AliExpress if they could swap out the LEDs on pixel strip for IR ones.
BTF lighting on AliExpress manufactures their own lights, I have bought from them before and they are reliable.
Surely they can take LED strip with a 5050 LED package and swap it for the same size IR LED.
 
Anyone try an IR LED strip as a more aesthetically-pleasing alternative to traditional boxy illuminators?

I found a bunch on amazon, mostly at lower prices than aliexpress. A lot of them even have 940nm options which is intriguing. 940nm doesn't make a visible red glow, but camera compatibility is all over the place and very poorly documented.

Most of these are SMD3528 LEDs:

30 LEDs/M (SMD5050)
60 LEDs/M
120 LEDs/M
Multiple options
240 LEDs/M
240 LEDs/M

But I have some concerns.

1. How noticeable is the red glow with a 850nm strip?
2. Everything I can find has a 120 degree beam angle which could be rather wasteful. The wide angle could mean far less effective range than you would think, given the power consumption.
3. Might be tricky finding a plastic/aluminum channel with a cover that transmits IR light well, because nobody tests them for IR transmission.
4. My limited experience with LED strips is that they use a shitton of power for less apparent brightness than traditional bulb-shaped lights, and that is indoors where the 4 walls, floor, and ceiling are all helping to bounce the light around and keep it where it is useful.

My main worry is that I'd spend all this time and money installing a 5 meter 1200 LED strip only to find that it lights up the area immediately in front of my garage very evenly and strongly, but doesn't reach the end of my driveway, which is honestly where the light is needed most. I have 5 years of experience running this illuminator outside at my old house and I know that a pair of these would do the job a lot quicker, cheaper, and easier, but they would be more of an eyesore.
 
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most transparent/translucent plastics pass 850nm IR just fine

that first one you linked says its 7.2 watts per meter, and thats 30 LEDs, so the individual LEDs are .25 watts each, a full 5m strip of these would be 36 watts, 3 amps at 12V, thats a lot of light. you can't measure IR in Lumens, since Lumens is based on the eyeballs sensitivity, which is very low at 850 nm. My experience with LED strips is, they can be bright as all heck, just depends on what LEDs they have, and how hard they are driven, the 5050 LEDs tend to be a lot brighter than the smaller LED chips... I bet 1-2 of these LEDs are similar intensity to the built in illuminators on most cameras, but more diffuse. These appear to be a passive design with just load resistors, so it should be possible to put these on a 12VDC dimmer, and the lower the voltage, the dimmer, until somewhere around 1-3 volts, they go out entirely.

note I only looked at the first link.
 
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Left Coast Geek said:
most transparent/translucent plastics pass 850nm IR just fine
Click to expand...

Thats good to know.

This 240 LED/m strip (second to last link) looks like one of the best value in terms of $$ per watt. With 96 watts spread over 5 meters, it should be a lot of light. My concern is that with such a wide beam angle (120°) it would light up the wall and soffit and ground nearby for about 10-20 feet, then quickly fade off into blackness. My goal is to achieve good visibility as much as 60 feet away and I'm just not sure that is reasonable with this style of LED without focusing lenses.
 
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See, this is the area I'm working with.

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The edge of the driveway is about 45 feet away from the cameras and I'd like to have strong IR coverage all the way out to there and beyond. But I'd also like to do it as discreetly as possible, and I figure a milky white aluminum light channel mounted under the soffit is a great deal more discreet than 2+ black bricks mounted to the siding. The question is whether it would be effective or not.
 
Hmm. At my old house I had good IR out to 80-100 feet with just one Univivi 12 LED floodlight (as linked above in post #7) and the integrated LEDs on a ipc-hfw5231e-z5 camera. Plus another wide angle IR cam or two, but those hardly count next to the other lighting. At the new house I'm trying to be much more discreet.
 
my 30 degree spot has 3 focused LEDs, and I put diffuser* tape over two to better balance the foreground. the beam is aimed at that 'tree cave' of a driveway entrance.


* ok, 2-3 layers 3M/Scotch "Magic Tape"
 
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