LED Video Light...

[jcskeeter]

Hello there. New to the forum and to electronics, so you'll have to excuse any noob questions I might ask. But I appreciate any help.

I have purchased 4 of these **broken link removed**. My goal is to wire these strips in line (parallel) to create one 12 volt light. I have a few questions. Do I need to add any resistors or anything like that when wiring the strips together? I've got another question which may change the answer for the previous question. The input range for these LEDs is 8-15 volts. I would like to power the LEDs with a prosumer camcorder battery that runs at 7.2 volts. So how would the LEDs react to only having 7.2v power them? Would it be too much of a drain with all three strips running or would it just be dim? Another option I have, which I'm leaning more towards, would be to power it with two batteries running at 14.4 volts. Would I need any special wiring to do that setup? Could I just wire the batteries in series to create the 14.4v and would that be safe for the lights? The battery bracket would look something like this:
.

Essentially this is what I'm trying to create but not to this caliber:


Again, sorry for the noob questions but thanks a lot for any info.

 

[jcskeeter]

Somebody feel free to let me know if I'm being totally naive about this thing and I'm in way over my head. A number of people have looked at the post now with no replies so I'm just wondering where I stand? Thanks for any help!

 

[Hero999]

The spec' says 9V to 15V.

I don't see any reason why you can't connect four in parallel.

The voltage rating indicates they already have a built-in resistors or constant current source.

You could try running of lower voltages than 9V but they'll either not work or be dim.

 

[jcskeeter]

Perfect, that's the kind of info I was looking for.

Any input on setting up the two batteries in series? Do you see any problems with that? Thanks again!

 

[Hero999]

What's the maximum voltage of the batteries hot off the charger?

If it's over 7.5V (15V in total) it might damage the LED light.

 

[jcskeeter]

I guess I'm not sure what it is hot off the charger? (I'll test tonight) All I know is it says it's 7.2v on the back of the battery. So it could be a couple tenths higher hot off the charger? Would there be some kind of regulator I could put inline to guarantee it wouldn't go over 15v? I'm looking into using a dimmer also. Would the dimmer affect the voltage in any way? Looking at this dimmer: Micro Dimmer Thanks again!

 

[Hero999]

7.2V is the nominal voltage and will be higher hot off the charger.

Do you know what type of battery it uses?

If it's Lithium ion the voltage will be about 8.2V hot off the charger, if its NiMH then it could be as high as 9.6V.

The dimmer won't make any difference because it uses PWM and doesn't actually change the voltage. If you know the current required but the LEDs you could just use a resistor to drop the required voltage, look up Ohm's law on Wikipedia.

 

[jcskeeter]

Ok. Yes, it's a lithium battery. Thanks, I'll look at the Ohm's Law.