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Electronics Question


dominic_2005

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Hiya folks.

Quick question regarding resistance from someone who's knowledge of electronics is limited to + is positive, - is negative.

I am planning a lighted build, in parallel. All LED's are 3.2v each with an individual resistor to run from a 12v power source.

If I was to use, say two strips of copper to act like a power rail for each LED to be connected to, would the thickness/width of said copper affect the result? IE, if it is too thick is it going to cause the LED's to be dimmer than just using cables?


Hope I explained that?

Thanks


D

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I hate electronics lol

So If I was to use 1mmx3mm copper strip, it's not going to give me a brightness reduction?

 

Or even 2mm copper wire...basically something thick enough to hold it's shape is what I am looking to use ideally.


Thanks

D

Edited by dominic_2005
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The thickness will depend on how much total length you intend to run to supply the led's, to be honest I would think any off the above will be fine unless your using hundreds of led's and one hell of a conductor run

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11 minutes ago, bhouse said:

It all depends...

 

How many LEDs? 

 

Do you know what current they draw? Alternatively, what resistor are you using on each LED?

Off the top of my head, will be around 170-180 LED's. Most of them are pre-wired/pre-resistored to run off 12v. On top of that, about 30-40 will be manually fitted with a 470 Ohm resistor each. (Bought on advice).

Edited by dominic_2005
clarification
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Ooh that's a lot.

It looks as if you could easily need 4 amps or so to power that lot. That means that a PP3 9V battery would last for about 15 minutes.

 

Another point is heat build-up. If all the LEDs are close together in an unventilated space you may well have problems with heat build-up.

 

I wonder if you'd be better off going for fewer LEDs and using fibre optic cable to get the light to where it's needed?

 

If you plan to go ahead with the LEDs, there's a really good website that explains all the ramifications far better than I could!

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Fair few huh?

I will be running it from a mains 12v DC power supply. I ran my Aida Luna using the same method and that had around 150-ish LED's:

y4ml8fN7Zg5RnZus48FMt9JQ_Vk7VjGpDAbOdxad


I am already planning on using fibre-optics as well. There may not end up being that many bulbs in, thats how many i've ordered. But then there are 12 LED's just for the floodlights around the external hull below the lifeboat deck lol.

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OK, I will never ever understand electronics.

I was just playing about with ideas, and I took 3 LED's. 3.2v 20mA @ 12v

I connected each one directly to the power source (Parallel) and as should be, they were all the same brightness.

I tried those same 3 LED's in Series, and...they still all lit up the same brightness. By rights, only the first one should have been fully lit, the 2nd and 3rd should have been slightly dimmer.

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I did read it.

I didn't understand much of it, but I got the basics. My problem is my experiences always counter that which every piece of information I read tells me...hence, I will never understand it lol


Also, I don't get the difference between fact and opinion of the writer.

EG: One article will say "oh never ever put LED's in Parallel" ... whilst another says Parallel is required in order not to limit the number of LED's to the amount of the power source.

As I understand it, and by all means correct me if I am wrong, if I had, say 10 3.4v non-resistored LED's and I wired them in series, I would need a power supply of 34v. However, I could add a resistor to each one of those 3.4v LED's and run them in parallel from a single 12v power supply.

Edited by dominic_2005
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