Need Moar Power

[snikta...@gmail.com]

My GF told me that the blue COB ("Chips On Board") LED bar I have on the bottom crossbar of my Burning Man bike isn't bright enough and it's possible to lose me in the distance. That sounded like a challenge :-).

The bars I have are like these (but only 700mA, not the 1.6A or so of the linked example): http://dx.com/p/20w-1000lm-460nm-blue-light-cob-led-strip-silver-dc-12-14v-170-x-15mm-203212 

I was originally thinking to get similar R, G and B bars and run some flashy pattern off an ATTiny or something. But it seems green and blue COB bars just aren't available! (My suspicion is because the blue ones are an intermediate product on the way to the white and off-white that everyone wants?)

But now I've found these beauties:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1130970414/10w_white_orange_yellow_red_green.html

I'm thinking three (or six!) of these nailed to a strip of aluminium might do the trick.

1) Am I mad to think I can power these of a 12V SLA battery? I'm going to flash them maniacally, so the duty cycle will be pretty short.

2) Has anyone got experience using these COB emitters "bare" like this? Would heat sinking be a huge problem? 

3) Aside from fairly beefy constant current drivers, will these "just work" the way I expect them to, or will I need some other kind of driver circuitry?

Cheers, Robert.

[EkriirkE PersonaLED LEDSuit]

Your SLA would have to be large.  Our bikes only last about a night w/ a ~8Ah and a single strip of 5m x 60/m RGB on rotating colours.  We also have slender elongated solar panels attached to the bikes to re-charge it during the day which barely kept them topped off.

You will need a bit of heat sinking - not much, the frame of the bike would do fine.

And I would recommend a const current source (3W/channel, they rounded up) for that puppy.