[srikant]

Inspired by all of you here, i went searching for shop where i can find these LED s and found one atlast today. Bought ten 5mm blue LED and ten 5mm white LEDs. Did not buy resistors as i had not noted down the resistance values for the same. However, now that i have found the shop atlast, i ll go get em and hope to join you guys into some DIY, of course with all your support.

Note from Team-BHP Support : Please DO NOT use chat/sms style lingo while posting. Do take time to type in proper english with punctuation etc. Do read the board rules before proceeding.

Thanks for your co-operation.

[rahulya007]

Greenhorn,

Have you used the 4 legged LED's or the normal 5 mm ones with 4 rows sharing 3 LED's each in series/ parallel. My boot lamp is the same, but i don't think there's enough space to fit in those 4 legged LED's. What was the resistor value if they were all 5 mm ones.

The light from your setup looks really bright and enough to lit up the boot. Nice Job..!!

Regards,

Rahul

[greenhorn]

Thanks
I'm using regular 5mm LED's with two legs.

each row is 3 LED's in series, and I've got four such rows in parallel

as always. the resistor used is 100 ohm

I was able to cram these many in because i soldered them onto a dot PCB

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

I was able to cram these many in because i soldered them onto a dot PCB

That reminds me i need to redo my boot LED setup using a PCB and an adapter. Rather crude setup as of now.

[ghpk]

Originally Posted by rahulya007

Greenhorn,

Have you used the 4 legged LED's

4 Legged L.E.D's would be a RGB LED, where one pin is common and other three are for Red, Green, Blue,
Such L.E.D's are expensive and are used in circuits which change light color based on a PIC based controller to mix colors and give you many more shades than you could imagine.


for 5mm L.E.D. use a 1/4 watt, 100ohm or a 220ohm resistor for each three L.E.D. in Series. if you wish you can go for 1/2 watt resistor too, but 1/4 is OK.

DO NOT USE one resistor with one L.E.D. it wastes a lot of energy.
However I've previously used a 560ohm resistor with single LED and it kept glowing till more than a year before i changed the setup due to color choice.

[gopinathann]

Originally Posted by badboyscad

Here is a small pictorial representation of my setup:

Attachment 135477

All LEDs are 5mm blue and all resistors are 820 ohms 1/4watts.

With your experience and advice I was able to setup the LED interior light successfully.
Considering 12-14 V I calculated to 150 ohm for 6 LEDs, however I had added 142 ohm (100 + 42) 1/4 Watt resistor for each series.



Question:
1. The cabin light is 12V 10W, If I want to create LED setup for a light of 12V 5W or 12V 60W, do I need to take care of any other calculation. Does the W mean the max output to the terminal ?
2. What would be the approximate Watt for this 6 LEDs ?
3. There is a loose contact when connecting the wires to the holder, any best way to do this ?

[greenhorn]

each set of 3 LED's + 1 resistor in series consumes about 1W. So if you want a 5W setup, use that many strings. Cant imagine using 60

how exactly have you connected the LED's ?

But a 2~3W LED setup will be as bright as , if not better than a 10W bulb setup - LED's are kinda like CFL's

[gopinathann]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

each set of 3 LED's + 1 resistor in series consumes about 1W. So if you want a 5W setup, use that many strings. Cant imagine using 60

how exactly have you connected the LED's ?

But a 2~3W LED setup will be as bright as , if not better than a 10W bulb setup - LED's are kinda like CFL's

LED Setup


I was looking for Fog lights for high wattage. Think the Fogs will be around 35-40 W. In that case I have to go for small LEDs with more power.

[greenhorn]

the fog lights thing has been done. Personally, dont think you get better performance than bulbs, unless you want want to do it for the appearance.
Unless you find very narrow beam high intensity LED's and a way to cram in about 30~40 LED's into a foglight housing , i think the halogens still have the edge.

[ghpk]

Originally Posted by gopinathann

Question:
1. The cabin light is 12V 10W, If I want to create LED setup for a light of 12V 5W or 12V 60W, do I need to take care of any other calculation. Does the W mean the max output to the terminal ?
2. What would be the approximate Watt for this 6 LEDs ?
3. There is a loose contact when connecting the wires to the holder, any best way to do this ?

1). 10w of filament bulb can be dimmer than a couple of LED's as the light emitted is equal or more than those stock filament bulbs.

2). greenhorn already answered this.
3). It would be better to get it properly TAPPED, using an electricity/adhesive tape, or BEST option is to SOLDER the wire to the connectors like I did.

[gopinathann]

Though the LEDs look bright, during the night it does not provide the better output and it is less than the stock, planning to add more bulbs.

[ghpk]

Originally Posted by gopinathann

Though the LEDs look bright, during the night it does not provide the better output and it is less than the stock, planning to add more bulbs.

you may see less light as most of the light is getting out of LED Lense in focused form.
you can try to FILE the top of LED and see if it helps.

There are other LED's available which would scatter more light than throwing all at one
specific spot.
Check the middle one in attached pic.
This is the LED iam using in Dome light and spreads more light even than the pirhana LED.

[srikant]

I too tried changing my cabin light to white LEDs, have done it in a crude manner for now this morning. Will check out the brightness tonight and then if it feels ok, then i ll have to find a solution to fix em in a better way using insulation tape or so.

I have connected 3 rows parallel, each row consisting of 3 white LED in series. (Without using any resistors).

I am not good in these stuff, but can come body please explain whats the need to add the resistor? it seems ok without the resistor.

Some problems uploading the pics. Will upload them later.

[greenhorn]

the resistor is kinda like a fuse. it limits the current through the LED's. without it , the LED's will be using up a LOT more current (without much increase in brightness) , and they'll die out soon.

[ghpk]

Greenhorn is correct, without a resistor, you'll blow up a lot of LED's and can also blow up dome light fuse in some cases.

Do use a 100ohm resistor atleast with 3 L.E.D. thing.
Using the short glass LED (which are used in china made torches these days) will help attain more illumination.