Wednesday, August 13, 2008

LEDisaster

The Fontainebleau can get pretty dark inside, so for a while I've been planning to use paper lanterns with throwies to add some light and to decorate the rustic dining room. Because the main purpose is to provide light, I wanted warm white LEDs inside white lanterns. Diffuse LEDs should provide even, un-spotty light.

I ordered LEDs and batteries from eBay and received the second package (the lights themselves) today, so tonight Tim and I started the project of putting them together. It's surprisingly easy, and we got into a rhythm and made about 50 before we realized that OH! we should probably test them inside the lanterns.

Well.

They're yellow. And not so mellow. Like a freakin' brick road. (The weird part is that our "diffuse warm white" LEDs look just that when they're off. Turn 'em on and it's a very. different. story.)

Pardon my language, but....... F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. First of all, we just made 50 of these damn things, which admittedly didn't take that long. But I can't return the LEDs ($60) or the batteries ($30). And now I have to buy more LEDs (or rent the whole shebang... maybe cheaper at this point?***), or... no lanterns. It's obviously not such a huge deal that I should feel as unreasonably sad as I do right now, but it's just not cool.

And if I could find that stupid camera cable, you could see the evidence for yourselves. But for now, you'll just have to use your imagination, or refer to this.


***or not: check it out.

2 comments:

Cate Subrosa said...

It's a stressful time, don't beat yourself up about this making you feel so sad!

Cynthia Sharpe said...

Your cousin, who stumbled across this thanks to buying notecards from Stelie. If you want, I'll ask one of the actual lighting designers at work what he recommends and his sources. We do this kind of thing allllll the time. Just normally for a couple dozen acres at a clip.

C.