LED Night Flying How-To Part 4/11 - Parallel Circuits

[tronics666]

When configuring the LEDs using the calculator, it's good to look at how much of the power is going to light and how much is going to heat in the resistor. This way you can design your circuits to be more efficient. In other words, more power to the lights and less to the resistor. Good video!

[thebibleisfiction]

very good video!

[MasterTenku]

The English symbols for cells and resistors make more sense :P

[erkrystof]

@MasterTenku Hahaha, yes indeed, got to go with what you know sometimes! :)

[g4nismo]

@erkrystof, got another question if you don't mind. I'm planning on tapping my setup into a parking light source (14.4v) but also want it to tap into my turn signal source to blink whenever I use my turn signals. Would I need a SPST 12v relay for that to work? Does it matter if it is 3 or 5 prongs? How would I figure out what amp relay I would need?

[erkrystof]

@g4nismo Forgive me, I've never worked on cars :) For the amp pull, you have to calculate that or bench test the circuit with a multimeter, I don't know what LEDs or how many but I can't imagine you'll need a hell of a lot, looks like most are 20-30 amps, which should cover you, but you'll want to calculate that to be sure.

As for the power source, relay, I've no practical experience there.  You want one constant source and one blinking source (either one) to power your circuit, is that right?

[g4nismo]

@erkrystof

I got all my parts in a few days ago so i'll play around and bench test the circuit sometime.

As for the power source, I would want 1 constant source (parking light) and 1 blinking source (turn signal) to override the parking light source whenever the turn signals are activated. This might be over my head to tell you the truth so I might just stick to the 1 constant source if I can't figure it out...

[g4nismo]

Awesome video. I got a question. Say you wanted to configure a 1x11 led array with a 14.4V source, 3.9 FV, 25 mA LEDs. So, I could configure 3 sets of 3 leds in series with 120 ohms R and drop parallel lines for each of them and run the remaining two leds in series with a 270 ohm R and drop in parallel as well?

[erkrystof]

@g4nismo That's correct! That's not the only way, but it is the most power efficient. You could of course have 11 parallel lines, one per LED, and one 470 ohm resistor per LED, but then you're pulling almost 3 times the current. In the end, it's a balance between ease of wiring and power consumption, LED layout, etc. You're spot on with yours, and that's how I would do it.

[g4nismo]

@erkrystof Ok thanks! its been so long since my last ELTC course and i pretty much fell asleep through that class lol. i'm actually trying to rig this setup for my car so it should be interesting. I'm going to buy a breadboard and do some more experimenting. I wish you were my teacher back when i took my ELTC course. You make this stuff far more interesting and explain everything clearer. I'm prob gonna watch your other videos as well.

[PinkYakRC]

Good job Eric! A well put together video. I should have more than 36 views! :)

[erkrystof]

@PinkYakRC Thanks, Pink. They're fresh uploads, who knows what will happen. :)