Maxima90SE

i dont know much about them and i would like tofind out more and i was just wondering if anyone has a good website that could teach me some stuff. I want to start on doing something cause i have really good ideas (that is what i think though hehe) but i dont have much knowledge. so please help this

MaximaPolak

iTrader: (9)

Not really but.....


I am doing the same thing.
TO SEE WHAT I WANT TO DO.

I did this so far with LEDs.

Maxima90SE

yeah i saw ur page like 5 min ago casue i saw the polish tags that u had. i was like sweet. can i use it but i am gonna change it up a little. i am reading about it right now but i am not really getting it.

JS MAX

I'm with you..I know some but like to know more about the specifics with wiring leds in parallel..using resistors...all that. All I've done so far is solder them into the existing circuits and that's pretty simple.

Maxima90SE

yea..i wish there was something like this: "LEDs and resistors for Dummies" heheh

Maxtank

iTrader: (8)

I know a good bit about digital/analog circuits...but what exactly do you want to know?
some thoughts are-
series the lights will stay the same brightness, in parallel you will devide the current, LED's are current driven
the resistor to use is a 10K ohm, brown black red (i'm not positive on that, need clarification )
LED's are polarized, meaning they can only be operated in one way, they are a diode which blocks reverse current

Thats about all that comes to mind, maybe arrafio or blkmax95 will help me out a little on this

MyownNismo

iTrader: (13)

www.superbrightleds.com
That will help you out.

JS MAX

Yeah the few leds I've used I've ordered from there..I never realized that have some info on leds on there. Is that mostly what I would need to know? Isn't there different resistors for the leds you buy and how would I calculate everything for wiring in parallel, series and whatnot. Also stuff like techniques for all that crap. I dont have too much experience with all of it.

multiplexor

All you need to know:

Leds = needs 3 volts
Car = 12 volt sources all around...

if you plug 3 volts onto any car electrical source... led will literally blow up...
(not dangerously, unless the plastic flies out extremely quickly)

so down the voltage just buy a 1/4 watt resistor (goto any electrical store and ask them for some...) get 1/4watt 430-460 ohm resistors.

if you get 430 ohms resistors the lights will be brighter but won't last as long... even though they last forever as is...

I personally use 430... I like haveing them a bit brighter.

Connecting
Theres supposedly a set way to connect the led to the resistor but i've connected a resistor to either the negative or positive lead without any problems...

So to connect a led to a 12 volt source is easy. FIRST make sure you know what is positive and what is negative on the source.
Second, attach the resistor to either wire on the source. Personally I'll recommend the positive wire.
Next bring the led in closer and touch the positive and negative wires to the leads of the led. one wire on each lead. If the led doesnt light up, then flip it around and try again. because your using the negative wire from the car and the positive wire from the car is attached to the resistor and the resistor is what's touching the LED, the led will not explode because you accidently plugged it the wrong way. Simply reverse and try again. At this point the led should light up.

I believe the longer LEAD on the LED is the positive and the shorter is the negative.

that's pretty much it. As long as you make sure a resistor is between the led and the wire touching the led, you aight!

spirilis

iTrader: (2)

Also, if you really wanna understand a lot of the principles behind this, check out your local library for a Basic Electronics textbook (I think the one I read was entitled BASIC ELECTRONICS, it was from 1989)...

Talks about the basics such as Ohm's law, and goes into more advanced topics like DC and AC circuit networks, inductance (REALLY interesting, helps you understand a lot... principles behind alternators, high-pass crossovers, etc.), capacitance (used in low-pass crossovers, amplifiers, stiffening capacitors, ignition systems)...

Learning all those basics really does a lot to help you understand a LOT of what's going on electrically under the hood

JS MAX

Thanks this helps a lot..had just a couple more questions though..

1. Do I need to recalculate resistors for different leds or do most all need to be limited to under 3 volts?

2. As far as wiring goes..to tap into a power source wire taps are what I need or are we talkin strip the wires back a little and electrical tape them?

3. To connect resistors to the leads on the led, put solder on there and you're done?

4. To wire a switch for whatever you're hooking up, just tap into the wire anywhere in between the power source and the device correct?

BEEI30

http://www.the12volt.com/

Maxima90SE

thanks for all of the replys...i am starting to understand this stuff. THe cool part about this is that i will be learning all of this next year, cause that is when electrical engineering starts for me. And i bet u guys are like " that guy wants to be an electrical engineer and he doesnt know this stuff" but the way i see it, is that i might get it someday heheeh

Walka

google is your friend.

walka

multiplexor

Hey we all start somewhere right hehe

Granted i was doing this stuff back around grade 4 or 5... but it's not very hard to pick up... tons of fun

multiplexor

1 ) bah most leds you're going to purchase will take a max voltage of around 4 to 4.5 volts max... using 430 ohms will bring you closer to those numbers whereas 467 ohms brings you to around 3.4 volts (around that...) if the leds values are different than 4 to 4.5 volts, post them up here... i'd be curious what values they have

2 ) lol this is personal preference... heh Personally I just cut the wires i need... In the case where you want it looking professional, then i'd say tap it. For example in my car i have 2 leds behind the middle vents. a multi bar neon light in my back window (very nice to look at) i also have 4 leds lighting up front/back drive/passenger floor areas, along with one or 2 other things. All hooked into the cigarette lighter. In this case i didn't need to cut any wires. I simply unplugged the cig lighter and plugged in my own 2 wires. I then plugged these wires onto 2 long strips which have screw holes. Now whenever i want to use a voltage source i just find an empty screw hole and put a wire in on each side. (i'll post a pic here of what i did exactly hehe

then i also plugged 2 wires into the screw hole and wired them back up to the cig lighter so it's also functional again

3 ) Again a personal choice... hehe Personally I just wrap the wires around the resistor and other the other side of the resistor i attache another wire which then gets wrapped around the LED's lead. I'd probably solder them all together, but i'm lacking a soldering gun If you want to do that... i'd say go for it. It's more professional in the end.

4 ) For each item i mentionned which is hooked into the cig lighter device thingy i made, they all hook into switches. (IDEA: I use the change holder to place my switches. granted 3 switches max, but it's all i need)

to hook up a switch theres no preference to the location... Me personally I like hooking it up after the resistor. so it would come from source, pass through resistor, to the switch (assuming the switch is on the same wire as the resistor... which is what i usually do) then to the (+) on the LED. and the (-) goes straight to the source (-)

Hope this helps

Capitone

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE=multiplexor]1 ) if the leds values are different than 4 to 4.5 volts, post them up here... i'd be curious what values they have QUOTE]

Heres one example for you Multiplexor:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2582238422

That said, here are a few more tid bits of info I can contribute:

Colors like White, Blue, and Bright Red are all likely to be 3v and above. Amber and greens usaully range in the 3 and below volts. In any case wherever you get your LED's, there will most likely be specifications on Voltage and and everything on the packaging.

If you know the forward voltage of a LED (V), the forward current (MA) and voltage source your working with...ie 12V from your max. You can calculate the needed resistor with this equation:

R= Source - V/Ma
So if we have 3.4v led at 20ma to hook to the ride it's: 12-3.4 divided by 20 equals .430 ( this is in Kohms...I think) Just remove the decimal for ohms and you've got 430 resistor needed to run a 3.4v led off your car battery. This equations helps a lot if your running multiple LEDs as a series circuit as well ( a bunch of LEDs running off the same Resister in stead of one led per resistor, led resistor like most people do).

P.S.- The link I posted is to a pretty good Vendor. Pricing, service and quaility are top notch, especially for items shipping from like the other side of the globe. To top it all off shipping is free. As you can see, the vendor posts the LED specifics in his Ebay pages. Saved me a lot of money.

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

http://metku.net/index.html?sect=vie...calc/index_eng


that website is helping me with my LED tails(sorry for copying )

JS MAX

alright well I think I got all this stuff down..and I'm looking at the two different leds I may use, one is 3000 mcd and one is 5500 mcd

Both are ran at 3.5v and 20 ma, with peak of 4v and 50 ma.

If I wired 4 in parallel for the acc, they'd need ~106ohms of resistance but the closest is 120, so my question is would the 3000mcd be too dim with that much of a higher resistor? I don't want them to be dim but also not sure if the 5000 mcd would be crazy bright.

Also, what kind of connectors could I use for the wire to go over the leads of the leds and continue to the rest of them, or should I not bother and just strip the wire back and put it over the leads and run it to the rest

multiplexor

Oh... I should mention... check the angle that the leds light at... I bet those leds you mentionned have a very limited angle of light throw... probably around 15-20 degrees... which can be very tiny. Great if you want to spot light something. If you want to light a larger area, go with less mCd's but a larger angle... I haven't bought one yet, but i'm sure those 200mCd leds that light up at 70 degrees are probably as bright (close up) as the long throw super bright leds.....

If the acc your trying to light up manual or automatic? for which year max?

JS MAX

hmm I was thinking the same..the 5500 have a pathetic 15 degree..this place has some 2400 mcd with 30 degree. Still doesnt seem good but what would that be like? Where should I pick up some leds with some decent lighting power but also a wide viewing angle? I usually get mine from superbrightleds.com but they have 3 different 5mm blue leds..one with 15 deg, one with 23 and one with 30

97 with auto climate btw

also..how good does the whole using sandpaper on the lens to help light diffuse to the sides work? How much does it help with viewing angle?

DAVE Sz

iTrader: (2)

BROWN BLACK RED is 1k. BROWN BLACK ORANGE is 10k.

Maxima90SE

yeah i heard that too, about using the sandpaper casue i want to put them into my gauges but some people said that it will be in spots unevenly. what degree woudl be good for the gauges in blue or superwhite

DAVE Sz

iTrader: (2)

for the gauges I'd suggest normal bulbs. I put mine in last week and they are very bright and broad. I had LEDs from work, as big of an angle as I could find and they were SPOTTY.

multiplexor

Idealy it would be awesome to find leds that output around 1,000 mcd and have a viewing angle greater than 45 degrees. I have yet to find one of these leds

I have not yet tried < 1000 mcd blue leds yet. But i'm going to soon order a ton of diff types from www.eled.com and do some tests to see what would be best for diff types of scenarios.

multiplexor

SWEET! They FINALLY have 463nm blue leds!! good lord it took them long enough. I've emailed them about this problem... They only had 470nm before.

If you do order from here, get the 463. It's more of a true blue than any other led. It's gonna look sweet.

For the sand paper issue. This is something i've been wanting to try. I'm curious how well it will diffuse the light. I think i'll give it a shot with one of my leds tonight. Take pics too or somethin

JS MAX

Sounds good you'll have to let us know

If I go with the 470nm ones you think the 23 angle will be alright? Maybe I'll just give the sandpaper a try.

Also..I'm wiring the leds in parallel..what kind of connectors can I use to get the wire on the leads but still continue it to the rest of the leds? or should I just strip the wire and shove it on there as best I can.

And since 4 of those leds need ~106 ohm resistance instead of using 120 Im thinking I'll just wire two resistors in series to get closer to the resistance needed so they arent dim..and just to check, do you just add the two resistances of the leds and get the total resistance when theyre in series?

multiplexor

Hey

Actually if you were wiring them in parallel, you would need one 430 ohm resistor for every led:


as well if you are wiring the leds in series (something i frogot about) you can only wire 2 leds per resistor... Since the load of each resistor can be slightly different. Thus it could cause one to die too fast. Though, personally I've wired 4 leds per resistor without a problem... But doing it again, i'd probably only stick to 2 per resistor.

If you wire them in series for a 12V battery running two LEDs in series the voltage across the resistor is (12 - 3.8 - 3.8) = 4.4V, resistor value is therefore 220 ohms.



woah... i am looking at a led website and i think this might be a very good deal!
http://www.hosfelt.com/en-us/dept_214.html

6000mcd blue leds operating at 3v max... 30 degrees viewing angle... which is uncommon ( i find ) for high intensity leds. AND at the PERFECT wavlength of 466nm should give your more of a pure blue than a 470nm which is a sky blue.

JS MAX

damn..are you sure man? I was gonna wire mine just like the guy who did the write up in the how to did. Since theres 4 leds in the acc and I'd use all the same leds I was going to simplify it by using one resistor on the positive coming from the cig lighter and do them in parallel, running the positive and connecting to all the positive leads and the negetive and connect it to all the negetive leads.

leds I'm using are 3.5v 20 ma

so (12-3.5)/80ma total current = 106.25ohm resistance

Wouldn't that be right? But maybe I'll be using those 6000mcds you found..thats awesome

multiplexor

yeah basically you would have one resistor and then that would go straight to each positive LEAD on the LED's... and the negative would go straight to each led from the power source.... You know i've actually done this also... My leds are still alive Textbook speaking from what i've been reading, you should only connect 2 per resistor... but i haven't had a problem with 4.

If i can make a suggestion, wire them up the the existing power source inside the acc. The one which is used to illuminate the existing lights in there. This way it will function like before. Through the cig, you won't be able to dynamically turn on the lights when the car is off.



oh and in paralle, what i've always done is used one 430ohm resistor on the positive wire and then passed it along to all the other leds... I'm going to have to verify this... I might have been doing it wrong, if your saying i could use a less resistance resistor.

What i did:

JS MAX

lol ok so to straighten things out..you're saying i CAN wire them like I explained? wasnt sure if u were telling me I couldnt or not. What exactly is the power source for the existing lights? is it a wire to tap into or is it just a spot on the circuit board to plug the wires to

Also..to clarify..when I wire them like I explained, do I use the same positive wire and same negetive wire and connect them to the appropriate leads or should I use 4 seperate wires running off the one coming from the power like you drew?

lol tryin to get everything down as much as possible so I dont fry anything

Yeah I thought I could wire them as I explained because I used the same setup basically as the guy did who did the write up so I'm assuming it would be ok since on parallel the 4 leds theres more current needed so lower resistor


I'm just going to draw a bootleg little diagram here. The leads from the four leds are the +'s and the -'s in below them are the ned leads to the same led. I believe this is how its done. Connect the + power source to the positive leads and then the rest of the positive leads all to each other and the negatives the same. Then of course the appropiate resistor.

Power(+)----------Resistor----+-----+-----+-----+

Power(-)----------------------(-)---(-)----(-)---(-)

multiplexor

Reason why it might have sounded confusing is because i just read a site which said if you wire up more than 2 leds on the same resistor, then it could cause problems for the leds. I'll have to read more to find out why. They did say the result would be a shortenned led life. Which would explain why I always see a single resistor per led (see your read brake light, or driver side window switch circuit board).

But I have not had any problems with my setup of useing 4 leds on 1 wire...

The text diagram you showed me is a circuit in series. I would recommend a similar setup like i did(image i made above), with seperate wires going to each led. You have one resistor, but a couple more wires

for the power source, when i changed my climate control area to blue, I tapped into the light which lights the manual air out switch. (leftmost thingy...) I simply removed all the "bulbs" not "leds" from the existing circuit board and removed the lights from the little plastic socket thing they were currently in. I then passed my led through the plastic piece instead.

This is a pic of what the bulb was in:

I essentially reused that plastic piece which holds the bulb. I just passed my led through it and screwd it back in. Then I did my wiring on the led's leads like that.

For the resistance, I would recommend buying one 430 ohm resistor and trying that out first. I have a hard time believing a smaller ohm resistor won't blow the led. I'm just saying this for safety sake... If your sure, go with the smaller ohm resistor. Either way it's cheap to buy these things
anywho for this i'm going to research more so i don't give out false info.

JS MAX

lol alright I'm gonna read a little bit more then give one of our methods a try. It was hard for me to believe it too. The writeup for blue climate control uses different leds with slightly different numbers and he uses a 80 ohm resistor for all 4. Weird

And I could've swore parallel was positive to positive to positive and same with negetive to negetive to negetive.

Isn't series running a wire from power the positive to one leds + lead...then from that same leds negative lead to the next leds +, then thats - to the next's +, and so on, then at the end it hooks to the negative power source.

Maybe I'm wrong tho..check out the diagrams on the link kevlo put up before..and plug in the stats for the leds I was planning on using and tell me what ya think..again theyre 3.5v and 20ma

http://metku.net/index.html?sect=vie...calc/index_eng

haha maybe somebody else can help us out here.

multiplexor

hmm wow that's very interesting. I'm going to give this a shot with crappy red leds first... I can understand the logic of leds diminshing voltage through led usage.... But I still was 100% sure you needed one 430-470 ohm resistor no matter what. Since after the resistor there will be ~3.5 volts, i didn't think the first led would kill all the voltage and provide 0.0V for the next led. I'm definitely gonna try this. I suggest being extra carefull and maybe trying with crappier leds to begin with... hmph

nubiannupe

iTrader: (9)

I'm just surprised Tony hasn't chimed in here this whole time. After all, he kinda 'kicked the ball' with all this LED stuff...

JS MAX

lol im was thinking the same...any help tony?

MaximaPolak

iTrader: (9)

OK so today I find out that the rear window switches can be changed to blue. (The front can't. The voltage is too low.) Anyway I took some pics or one.

JS MAX

Front switches can be changed to blue..mine are and lots of other people around here have it too. Give it a try it'll work.

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

if 3000 MCD is that bright, 6000 is gonna light hte whole interior up. Anyone got pics of 6000MCD Blue?

Ladzio

iTrader: (8)

Great Thread! Learned some more stuff!

Since I like the Audi Red look, I changed the LEDs in my window switches to Red. I did that for the first time and consider myself damn lucky not to destroy or burn anything. However, yesterday I was working for 6 hours on my Manual Climate Control circuit and I believe I messed up the board.
In the process I burned some pessages but managed to reconnect them with small pieces of wire, kinda making bridges. I got all LEDs to work but now my vent controls don't work

Judging from my lesson here are the questions I've got:

1) How many watts soldering gun am I safe to use?

2) How long can the circuit be exposed to the heat?

3) What is a good price on another MCC. Seen them on eBay for 25-30 bucks...

Thanks a lot!