Hey Guys,

First off, let me emphasize I am a software guy, and I am really cautious about the hardware end of things because I don’t like making mistakes.

Please treat me as if I know nothing about wiring up the boards etc.

I have a question.

I bought my LEDs and they should be arriving soonish.  In the meantime I’ve been thinking about how I will wire them up.

Can I buy a few of these: http://www.futurlec.com/Breadboards.shtml (The ones called “Power Bus") and string them together somehow?
I wonder the above simply because they seem like they’d be incredibly useful and convenient for making the strips for the side of the acrylic.

If so, what else do I need to buy?  I know I need resistors, and that I also need some way to power them up and string them together.

Thanks in advance!

Yes these work great. I used them as a prototype and then got some boards to do a final job. I don’t see any reason why you could not use this as a final solution it just wont have that professional look. Its really nice as you can edit the amount of led’s you need.

One thing you should also get for this is a breadboard kit witch has special wire to connect everything with. You can also use smaller plastic coverd paper clips and just use a wire striper to strip the plastic of the ends.

Alway remember resistors as you can kill the easily without them and I recommend this wizard: http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
If you dont get the right resistor you could shorten the life and get more heat that is unwated or you might not get all the light you want out of the leds.

For the power source I have used both the usb (5v from black and red wire) port and 12v power from a computer power supply. I liked the easyness of the usb but I went with 12v to get more led’s per resistor and becuse I was already going to have the power supply for the computer. If you use a laptop it might be best to use usb. One final thing you will need is some way to connect the power to the breadboard as standard wire dose not fit well into the pin holes.[

I started to build an FTIR board, and then moved.  I have a rats nest of IR LEDs in a Ziploc in my apartment.  It would have been nice to have a board like this, but then again if I had finished the project they would have been mounted anyway.

Thanks for the quick replies guys!! I really appreciate it! I’ll be looking into those more and once I figure it out I’ll post it on my blog.  Thanks guys!

What else do I need to buy to power those up, and set up the resistors?  I’m having trouble figuring that out, and digikey has been less than helpful :(.

Thanks in advance!
Elliot

I bought a potentiometer at Radio Shack and played with it til I had nice bright LEDs that wouldn’t burn out.  I had 18 LEDs and used a 5 V power adaptor for my old Samsung phone to light them up (3 strings of 6 lights).