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AC Line voltage powered LEDs?

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drventure:

I've got an old brass and marble lamp that I'm restoring (as a companion piece to the arqadium).

Anyway, I'm wanting to hook up a few flicker LED's under the marble bits to make them glow, but I'd rather not bother with a ton of dedicated circuitry.

One option is to pick up a 5v Power brick, but there's not a ton of space in the base for something like that AND the power plug to plug it into.

Anyone seen a wire-in 5v PS, or have some other ideas on how I might power the LED's with minimal circuitry off the normal AC line that runs into the lamp?

I'm really not wanting to actually build a circuit for it, because, well, this is LINE voltage and it's going in a +metal+ lamp. All I need is to get shocked by the dang thing. I've had enough of that kind of electricity!

I was also thinking, maybe those LED christmas lights? not sure how the circuit in them works.

DaOld Man:

You can use a regular led, just size the resistor to drop the voltage from 120 to 2 or 3.
But the led will flash at 30 times a second, so it may be dim, or flicker some.
You could glue two leds together and wire them in parallel, with opposite polarities, then they both will flash alternatively, wish should be close to a normal one.
They also make a led that shines in 3 colors, based on supply polarity. AC will make it shine in one color.
Just put heat shrink over all the bare wires and you wont have to worry about shock.

drventure:

Interesting. Hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense.

Looks like I have a bit of breadboard experimentation to do...

Thanks!

DaOld Man:

Rough calculation in my very spacey head says try a 5000 ohm resistor but it needs to be pretty hefty, maybe 2 or 3 watts.

BobA:

This circuit may help you.

I think the single circuit with 2 leds is correct but the multiple leds should not have the vertical connection on each pair.   The LEDs should probably be in series with the resistor being recalculated for the change in voltage drop.




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