life-saver
New Member
This is pretty simple stuff I reckon, but I'm just having a little difficulty wrapping my brain around the little details. I really don't have a great deal of electronics experience.. I'm more of a "wannabe"? lol.
Anyhow.. I've found bulk LED's on eBay for cheap. I want to be able to build my own LED light modules, which could be used in automotive applications (I'm a police officer and I'm wanting to play around with some ideas).
So.. essentially, I need to figure out the best way to supply power to a light array.. voltage in an automotive application can vary (especially with all the equipment in a police car) so, there will definitely be spikes in voltage supply.
Next.. I need to be able to scale this up and down.. meaning, I may want to build a light array that drives 3 rows of 8 LED's or I may want to drive 6 rows of 6 or different configurations.
Here is some numbers that I'm trying to figure out.. the blue LED's that I will primarily be using are 3.6v, 25mA LED's. As best that I can figure, I could put 3 in series, with a resistor.. and it would require 10.8v, add a resistor to that, and repeat this for however many I would want to run in parallel? is that accurate? so, for example, if I would want ONE module of 3x8 (24LEDs), I would have 8 tied together in parallel.
Am I on the right track and making sense? Or did I go wrong somewhere??
So.. my concerns are (1) to make sure I'm on the right track, and then (2) when I hooked this up to automotive "12v" which can range from 10v to 14v, how do I (a) protect the circuit to keep it working, and (b) provide enough constant power?
I once had a retail purchased YELLOW LED lighthead, which contained (roughly) 44 yellow LEDs (4x11), and you could wire it to a 9v battery and it would power that lighthead for days. literally.
Also, I know these are typically less powerful LEDs, and most public safety applications use newer, 3rd generation LEDs.. but for now I just wanted to play around with some of these older LEDs.. maybe when the newer, brighter LED's come down in price, and I've made a few things successfully, I'll invest more.. but for now this is just in an experimental phase...
I eventually want to turn this into a more substantial project (and learning opportunity for me) to include using a microcontroller (don't laugh; a Basic Stamp maybe?) lol.. and to write programs to control multiple lightheads to create custom flash patterns and effects.
I guess I'm just hoping to find someone who could have a lot of patience with a newbie who is really interested in learning some basic electronics design stuff.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Anyhow.. I've found bulk LED's on eBay for cheap. I want to be able to build my own LED light modules, which could be used in automotive applications (I'm a police officer and I'm wanting to play around with some ideas).
So.. essentially, I need to figure out the best way to supply power to a light array.. voltage in an automotive application can vary (especially with all the equipment in a police car) so, there will definitely be spikes in voltage supply.
Next.. I need to be able to scale this up and down.. meaning, I may want to build a light array that drives 3 rows of 8 LED's or I may want to drive 6 rows of 6 or different configurations.
Here is some numbers that I'm trying to figure out.. the blue LED's that I will primarily be using are 3.6v, 25mA LED's. As best that I can figure, I could put 3 in series, with a resistor.. and it would require 10.8v, add a resistor to that, and repeat this for however many I would want to run in parallel? is that accurate? so, for example, if I would want ONE module of 3x8 (24LEDs), I would have 8 tied together in parallel.
Am I on the right track and making sense? Or did I go wrong somewhere??
So.. my concerns are (1) to make sure I'm on the right track, and then (2) when I hooked this up to automotive "12v" which can range from 10v to 14v, how do I (a) protect the circuit to keep it working, and (b) provide enough constant power?
I once had a retail purchased YELLOW LED lighthead, which contained (roughly) 44 yellow LEDs (4x11), and you could wire it to a 9v battery and it would power that lighthead for days. literally.
Also, I know these are typically less powerful LEDs, and most public safety applications use newer, 3rd generation LEDs.. but for now I just wanted to play around with some of these older LEDs.. maybe when the newer, brighter LED's come down in price, and I've made a few things successfully, I'll invest more.. but for now this is just in an experimental phase...
I eventually want to turn this into a more substantial project (and learning opportunity for me) to include using a microcontroller (don't laugh; a Basic Stamp maybe?) lol.. and to write programs to control multiple lightheads to create custom flash patterns and effects.
I guess I'm just hoping to find someone who could have a lot of patience with a newbie who is really interested in learning some basic electronics design stuff.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks for your time.