grimxneko
New Member
first off, im new to this site and also pretty new to electronics and stuff. with that said, i have a some questons...
ok, so the situation is: im planning on making a fairly large infrared light sorce to mount on my video camera for night shooting. it's going to be an array of 20 infrared LEDs consisting of two different kinds of LEDs (ten of these big bright ones (Here), and ten of these mediocre smaller ones **broken link removed**). also, im planning to use a 9V battery for the power sorce, and somehow i want to make the birghtness adjustable (like using a dimmer or something) along with an on/off switch. now, i set up a prototype kinda thing to see if the circuit would work and just to get a visual idea of what i want the final product to look like (Here). keeping in mind im a complete begginer, i dont quite grasp the concept of using resistors. so when i wired this all up, i simply left out any resistors. also, since this was just a test, i didn't solder anything yet. i just twisted the leads together like a twist tie. oh, and take note that i dont have a multimeter so i dont know anything about the specs or details of the LEDs themselves besides whatever the pages that i purchased them from said (in the first two links). soooooo here's where the problems come in....
-i first tried to wire all the LEDs up in a parallel circuit but i noticed each additional LED made the whole thing dimmer. everytime i added one, the whole thing would become less bright. i tried this with up to 5 LEDs and gave up, thinking that by the time i got to my goal of 20 the whole thing wouldn't light up.
-so next i tried a series circuit. it worked with a small strand of 5 LEDs so i went on to connect them all. when that was all done i hooked it up to the battery and none lit up. i was (and still am) very confused by this. i tried many times after that; checking the connections, checking the battery, checking the + and - leads, even checking every light for a dead one. this all yeilded to nothing but confusion and frustration. the results (when there actually were any) were varried as you can see here.
-also, i mentioned before that (assuming i get all this working right) i would like to have the option to control the brightness/ dimness of this. i really dont know how to do that (a variable resistor maybe?? idk), so that'd be nice to know too.
so, in summary, im simply asking HOW?? how exactly should i wire all this up?? any help would be greatly appreciated.
ok, so the situation is: im planning on making a fairly large infrared light sorce to mount on my video camera for night shooting. it's going to be an array of 20 infrared LEDs consisting of two different kinds of LEDs (ten of these big bright ones (Here), and ten of these mediocre smaller ones **broken link removed**). also, im planning to use a 9V battery for the power sorce, and somehow i want to make the birghtness adjustable (like using a dimmer or something) along with an on/off switch. now, i set up a prototype kinda thing to see if the circuit would work and just to get a visual idea of what i want the final product to look like (Here). keeping in mind im a complete begginer, i dont quite grasp the concept of using resistors. so when i wired this all up, i simply left out any resistors. also, since this was just a test, i didn't solder anything yet. i just twisted the leads together like a twist tie. oh, and take note that i dont have a multimeter so i dont know anything about the specs or details of the LEDs themselves besides whatever the pages that i purchased them from said (in the first two links). soooooo here's where the problems come in....
-i first tried to wire all the LEDs up in a parallel circuit but i noticed each additional LED made the whole thing dimmer. everytime i added one, the whole thing would become less bright. i tried this with up to 5 LEDs and gave up, thinking that by the time i got to my goal of 20 the whole thing wouldn't light up.
-so next i tried a series circuit. it worked with a small strand of 5 LEDs so i went on to connect them all. when that was all done i hooked it up to the battery and none lit up. i was (and still am) very confused by this. i tried many times after that; checking the connections, checking the battery, checking the + and - leads, even checking every light for a dead one. this all yeilded to nothing but confusion and frustration. the results (when there actually were any) were varried as you can see here.
-also, i mentioned before that (assuming i get all this working right) i would like to have the option to control the brightness/ dimness of this. i really dont know how to do that (a variable resistor maybe?? idk), so that'd be nice to know too.
so, in summary, im simply asking HOW?? how exactly should i wire all this up?? any help would be greatly appreciated.