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Using LED Filaments for lighting Model Kits


Reelyator

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Zapping through YouTube i shortly stumbled across a Video from a guy who used LED Filaments for creating a light Saber for his 1/12 Scale Darth Vader Figure. Very usefull Video!!

 

Those Filaments can be found in various lenghts and various colours on Ebay. Obviously clearly more expensive than the classical 5, 3 or 2 mm LED but i see alot of potential due do:

- avoiding hot spots compared to standard LED´s

- flexible installation due to the variable shape of the Filament

- ....

 

Anybody here who has already experience with using LED Filaments for his builds? Does anybode know, if the filments can ce cut to individual lenghts? Anything else to be considered or worth mentioning??

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
12 hours ago, modelerdave said:

This is the guy you're talking about, and here are one of his videos. His channel is great....

 

 

....correct. He has somereally fance build videos!

 

Meanwhile i ordered me some red, pink, green, blue and white LED Filaments in 130 mm from China. Just to try them out. Will post it here as soon as i can say somthing about them.

 

If anybody else here has experience to share: Let us know:-)!

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The First came in today. 10 Pieces of 130mm Filament LEDs in 2200K warm White. The Flexibility is really amazing. Feels like a Silocone Tube or a Spagetti.

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Unfortunately with very poor technical information provided. No Information on the Amperage (only Voltage=3V, Length=130mm an Colour Temp.=2200K) stated on the plastic bag.

 

This make is dificult to determine what resistor to use when connecting these Filaments to a 12V Power Supply

 

 

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....you need to keep your humor when buying technical stuff from China. This is the answer i got after requesting the missing information from the seller.

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...3 or 260 Volts at 10 or 13 or 20 or 100 mA....So what, may i choose??

 

Well, common sense already indicated that they do not run on 260V but i would still preferr some more reliabble information from the original manufacturer.

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1 hour ago, lesthegringo said:

Problem with this simple circuit is that as soon as you connect a load to the middle point (OUT in the diagram) you affect the resistance and lower the voltage.

 

If the resistances (R1 and R2) were selected such that for a 12 V input 3V was given at OUT then if, by coincidence, the additionl load circuit resistance was to equal R2 then the voltage @ OUT drops to around 1.7V which may or may not be sufficient to light the LED fillaments.

 

Two options for @Reelyator are:

 

One: to replace R2 with the LED fillaments for which he needs the info he's seeking to determine what R1 needs to be.

 

Two: to use a DC/DC voltage regulator and a correctly designed circuit to go with it that permits an input of 12V and a steady output @ 3V something similar to these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203257492450?hash=item2f531733e2:g:u6wAAOSwdVtgDU3w

 (usual disclaimers, other sources etc)

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Thank you guys!

Usualy when working with LED´s i use a 12V LED Power Supply. enter the Voltage and Amperege of the LED into a LED Resistor calculator like this one here:

https://www.leds-and-more.de/catalog/resistor.php

and solder the corresponding resistor somewhere between Power supply and LED. This usually works without much complications.

 

But when i connect the filament with a 90 Ohm Resistor (like calculated based on 3V and 100 mA) the filament lights up but the resisor gets pretty hot after a while wich is usually not a good sign.....

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2 hours ago, Reelyator said:

Thank you guys!

Usualy when working with LED´s i use a 12V LED Power Supply. enter the Voltage and Amperege of the LED into a LED Resistor calculator like this one here:

https://www.leds-and-more.de/catalog/resistor.php

and solder the corresponding resistor somewhere between Power supply and LED. This usually works without much complications.

 

But when i connect the filament with a 90 Ohm Resistor (like calculated based on 3V and 100 mA) the filament lights up but the resisor gets pretty hot after a while wich is usually not a good sign.....

 

Your 90 ohm resistor is running 9V @ 0.1A (100 mA) i.e. 0.9 W power and as the commonly available resistors are only 0.5 Watt or 1 Watt and may be being pushed beyond, or close to, it's limits.

 

You may need a higher wattage resistor similar to these:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133247111657?hash=item1f062591e9:g:BFYAAOSwCGVX98gB

 

 

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