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LED Help please

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Powder Keg:
I'm building a brake light and a turn signal for my sidecar. I know nearly nothing about the ways of the electron :doh: I think I can get the LED's and little resistors wired up fine. I found a circuit wizard that can help me with that. I would like to make the brake light flash when they are pressed and maybe something fancy for the turn signal would be fun too. Would this be very hard to do?

I think LED's are confusing? So far I think I need about 90000 mcd's for turn/brake lights and around 20000 mcd's for running lights. Does this sound about right? Or am I on my own? I'll get my lights from http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...Fled_prods.htm I'll be ordering the stuff this week\o/ I want to get these lights wired up and on my rig. Can they be too bright?


Thanks,

Divided he ad:
Hi Wes  :wave:


I hope I can help a little bit with this -   http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz  - I use this site to calculate when I make something.

As to the candels, does there have to be a maximum for the brake lights? There are hundreds of types of LEDs out there, most of them when mounted in a cluster would near blind you!! And to get the side/running lights down would higher resistance not do this? Perhaps others will chime in here? I only do this stuff for fun.... Someone must do it for a living?

I usually get my LEDs from eblag, the Japanese ones sell for pennies and are (in my case) always spot on.

I found the same sight as you list here.... But in dollaroonies and with postage it's a killer for me.




Hope there is something useful in there?



Ralph.

Powder Keg:
Thanks Ralph.

That's the same place I found to design LED circuits. The brake light i am building is pretty big. I'm planing on about 40 Led's. 30 for the brake light and 10 or so for running lights. Turn signal is separate and will have around 30 Led's. Again 10 for running lights and then only 20 for the turn signaling. probably over kill :wave: :clap: :wave:

I was looking at some Red ones. They are 8000 MCD's with a 30deg. viewing angle. This should make a pretty bright setup? But I don't really have anything to compare it to.

I wouldn't know how to change the resistance to make things dimmer.

Thanks,

Powder Keg:
Looks like the Ebay LED's are way cheaper!!! I might lean that way?

Bernd:
Wes,

Here's two electronic places that sell LED's

http://www.digikey.com/

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1

Use their search box for LEDs.

The leds work with amperage. So finding the right resistor to get the amperage were it's supposed to be will solve that issue. Don't have my electronics books here right now so can't give you an example.

I've got LED lighting on the trailer I built. I think the tail lights only have about 10 or 12 LED's. When the brake light goes on they just about blind you. I'm sure they are the super bright ones. I'm thinking using 30 would melt the guy behind you if you turn on the brake lights.

That's about all I can add to that.

Bernd

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