Single color LED's and individual wires going into an i-pac 2.
Hard-wired single color LEDs with no controller is the easiest LED option.
What are you using for a power supply?
- I wouldn't recommend driving more than a total of 120mA via the 5v pins on an IPac. That's how much current the 6 LEDs in the optical circuits of a trackball and spinner would draw.
- If you're running 12v LEDs with 5v, they will be a little less bright, last a lot longer, and draw a lot less current -- 3.7 mA per button LED in my setup
here with an additional 11 ohm current limiting resistor
or 5.83 mA per button LED in
this setup without the additional current limiting resistor, compared to the typical 20 mA. YMMV.
How many LEDs total?
- What amount of current are they rated for? (20mA each?)
The main issue I have right now is after wiring my 12v LED daisy chain there are several female disconnects still left over and I end up having to bunch them up and tie them but it is just more wire mess. I don't have any more buttons so I wanted to know if it is safe to just cut the excess off, and if so, what's a good way to terminate the ends?
No problem cutting off unused QDs at the end of the daisy-chain.
If you need three QDs, cut the wire at the red where it comes out of the third QD.
- No special termination is needed.
- You can use the leftover green part for other LEDs.
Wire ____ _____ _____
_____ _____ _____ \/ \/ \
/ \/ \/ \ QD QD QD QD QD QD
Scott