Garden lights circuit will this work

[ericgibbs]

I am on the way to get the correct size of resistor to check the LED's I thought I better do this first before purchasing all the other parts. I will check the led's tonight and post the results.

OK,
Lets know the results.

 

[jakethepup]

Ok out of 8 leds, with the correct resistor type 6 out of the 8 leds were 3.6 volts 1 was 3.2 volts and one was 3.4 volts.

The Ic Lm393 RadioShack does not have it, but it appears they have every thing else. I did not purchase anything other than the resistors to test the LED's, but I took the list of parts and it appears they sell everything else.

 

[ericgibbs]

Ok out of 8 leds, with the correct resistor type 6 out of the 8 leds were 3.6 volts 1 was 3.2 volts and one was 3.4 volts.

The Ic Lm393 RadioShack does not have it, but it appears they have every thing else. I did not purchase anything other than the resistors to test the LED's, but I took the list of parts and it appears they sell everything else.

hi jake,
I would suggest you start with only 6 of the 3.6V LED's [keep 2 for spares]

From a 6Vbty- 3.6V = 2.4V......... allow about 15mA/LED say 100mA total.
That requires a 24R resistor [ nearest pref value is 22R, gives 18mA/LED] in series with the LED's which are connected in parallel.
Use at least a 0.5Watt resistor, higher wattage OK if you have one.

You can now do a simple test for the light intensity [brilliance] by connecting the 22R resistor
and the 6 LED's in parallel across the 6Vbty.


If you prefer, you could have a resistor for each LED, a 120R for each LED would give 20mA/LED.
This is the way I would do it.

EDIT: doing it this way, would allow adding other LED's of different voltages, each with its own value resistor.

Do you follow OK.?

 

[mneary]

If you prefer, you could have a resistor for each LED,

This is the way that most of us prefer, because (as Eric points out) it allows using unmatched LEDs.