My LED array pics (experimental)

[IowaDavid]

Okay, so I've been playing around with red light therapy and decided I could possibly do it better myself than commercial models available for $600. So I ordered 400 red LEDs, then got to learning about wiring and soldering and LEDs, and thought some more about joules/cm2 given the LEDs I bought.... So, after many hours of tinkering and a couple of episodes of too much red light and aggravating my face, I've got a "working" model of what I'm trying right now.
Here are some pics.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b179/Condolezzak/LEDarray1.jpg

The three arrays shining with the lights off.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b179/Condolezzak/LEDarray2.jpg

Same, different perspective.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b179/Condolezzak/LEDarray4.jpg

This is my commercial acnelamp 3-headed lamp shown with a couple of three-lamphead towers that I built. Notice the brightness of the LEDs I bought vs. the commercial model. More light DOES NOT necessarily mean better, here. I'm still playing around with the distance and time I should keep myself from my LED array. I wanted to try to deliver the same benefits in less time...but to do this I am still playing around with the distance from my array. The commercial model says 6" from their lamp heads. With the LEDs I have--WAY too close for rosacea. More like 18"-24" and not 2x20 minute sessions a day--more like perhaps 10 or 15 or _maybe_ 20 minutes total at a 18" distance from the array I have. Too much light energy is definitely bad at this wavelength--it will promote angiogenesis as Dr. Nase said the in-office red light therapies do for diabetic ulcers, as I understand how this technology works. But, I'm not very clear on this yet. Still learning and experimenting.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b179/Condolezzak/LEDarray9.jpg

With lights on and cell phone for scale.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b179/Condolezzak/LEDarray10.jpg

Front of one array--3 "lamp heads" with 28 LEDs per "head".

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b179/Condolezzak/LEDarray12.jpg

Back of the same array. All the wires are connected to +/- power supply I got off of ebay for $48 with shipping. ;)

Well, I just wanted to share what I've been working on. Clearly, I need to be careful with this therapy--too much light is TOO MUCH. It provokes a redness reaction. But, if kept to a short amount of time in front of these LED arrays I've made, I may be able to find a happy medium of distance from the light source and time that will be beneficial and calm my skin the way my commercial model does over a longer period of time each day.


Something to think about, I guess.

David

[Max]

that design won't win a beauty contest :) but who cares?

hope it works for you, please keep us updated...

another thing where a split face approach would be possible, maybe that could help you to quicker estimate best settings?

[SuzyG]

Cool! My husband will appreciate this . . .he builds amps in his spare time. Hope it works for you!

[Jordan]

Wow that's pretty cool. Keep us updated! 8)

[IowaDavid]

that design won't win a beauty contest :) but who cares?


Clearly you haven't done the marketing research I have...that unfinished rubbermaid plastic and open wires with a unfinished 2 x 4 frame is the new black...uber fashionable. ;)


another thing where a split face approach would be possible, maybe that could help you to quicker estimate best settings?

I put them like that as at a foot and a half or two feet in distance from each "tower," the light diffuses enough so that I have a field of light hitting my face from each each side and head-on (these LEDs have a viewing angle of 15 degrees, which concentrates their light energy a lot more than the commercial model--I think that one must have a 30 degree viewing angle or close to that on its LEDs). If you play around with this frequency of red light, you can feel it working on your skin--it makes your skin sort of tingle, then feel "tighter." I've been using the commercial model long enough now to know how it should feel and how my face should look after using it--paler, calmed, and it should stay that way throughout the day. If I start getting increased flushing or background redness, and odd sensations in my facial skin, I'll know I'm using it too much.

Doing a split face test would be possible, I'd guess, but I'm just going by sensation and observing how my skin reacts. Breaking it up into around 5-7 minutes 3 times a day seems about right...I'll continue working on it though and post back about my progress. Still getting in-office laser treatments to punch through some of my telangiectasia and clear up the bigger defective vessels this therapy can't do anything for.


David

[Max]

Clearly you haven't done the marketing research I have...that unfinished rubbermaid plastic and open wires with a unfinished 2 x 4 frame is the new black...uber fashionable. ;)
David

:P

when you say you modify frequency - do you use pulsed voltage?

[IowaDavid]

I just have a standard 13.8 V power supply--I don't think there's any pulsing going on. The frequency I was talking about was the wavelength of light from the LEDs...sorry, I don't know much about electricity beyond what I had to learn to get this built. Very patchy. :o

[IowaDavid]

I would just like to post to end this thread--I was wrong about the energy delivery from my LED arrays. The energy delivery from red light LEDs appears to be far lower than I originally thought.

Red LED arrays are dealing in the microjoules/cm2 scale, whereas, other light treatments, as far as I have found (low-level light, and laser/IPL), are measured on the scale of joules/cm2. Very different. 10^1--joules; 10^(-6)--microjoules. And lasers are generally used in the double-digits of joules/cm2.

I would like to hear from someone that can explain this very large gap in
light energy delivery. Because all of the red light references I've found are talking about wound healing and the studies deal with joules/cm2--rather than ujoules/cm2.

Apparently, there are no studies to reference to explain my experiences with very-low-level red light therapy (microjoules/cm2).

I would very much like to understand this treatment modality as I have spent several thousand dollars on thermal laser treatments, when I've spent around $500 for my various red LED array models. And I wish I'd been able to give myself a red LED array 4 years ago.

This is not to say I am using some miracle cure. Anyone smart enough to be interested in this treatment modality should understand this. What I'm using right now is helpful, but far from an instant silver bullet.

Does someone have an explanation for why red light is helpful at microjoule levels and is harmful at much higher levels? I would REALLY like to hear any thoughts on this one.


David

[Max]

Does someone have an explanation for why red light is helpful at microjoule levels and is harmful at much higher levels? I would REALLY like to hear any thoughts on this one.


i'm the one who failed trying to calculate the amount of energy that is delivered to skin in a certain distance:)

what i can remember is that you've used same leds like the ones used in this commercial devices? maybe i don't get the point...

talking about e.g. 20Joules/cm² is a completly different thing, that's like touching a hot plate... this energy is used in lasers (like vbeam) combined with very short pulses to blast vessels.

there are also laser diodes - they are no option for such devices like yours. first they are really expansive, don't produce more energy, but focus beam in a very low angle. if you'd replace them only tiny spots of your face would be covered even if you're 5 feet away.

[IowaDavid]

Yeah, these are far below the energy levels of lasers. But, it's still light energy. Because red light had been mentioned as a tool for healing diabetic ulcers--promoting blood flow and wound healing--I was concerned that too much light exposure would be detrimental.

I didn't understand the massive gap between LEDs and other red light devices that may be "medical grade" (though I still don't know what the difference is in energy delivered from the above-mentioned red lights used for diabetes and those used for rosacea).

I was trying to clear up my initial reservations about using "too much" red light for rosacea treatment; I'm still trying to understand the range of light energies used that can be helpful for rosacea, and where red light therapy begins to promote angiogenesis or bloodflow. It seems that if you're dealing with LEDs, it would be a fantastic feat of wiring and engineering to pack the LEDs in an array that that was dense enough such that it would approach the "harmful" energy level of red light (promoting blood flow).

I'm still trying to understand this scale of energy delivery. Hopefully we'll begin to understand this after we get some studies done. :D

David