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Which way to wire LEDS in my buttons?
soulblazer28:
Ok here are two dumb questions. I am in the same boat with having all the parts but not knowing how to proceed.
How do you go from one wire coming off the +12v to each LED + ? Some sort of 'Y' tap? daisy chaining?
Also, i bought LED's off ebay that came with their own resistor. But one of my electronical engineer student friends calculated a much lower resistance than what the resistors are rated. Is that going to be ok or should I just go out and buy the resistor closest to what the calculation dictates? I've read that if the resistor rating is too low it will overheat, but what if its too high?
whammoed:
--- Quote from: soulblazer28 on March 03, 2006, 09:55:19 pm ---Ok here are two dumb questions. I am in the same boat with having all the parts but not knowing how to proceed.
How do you go from one wire coming off the +12v to each LED + ? Some sort of 'Y' tap? daisy chaining?
Also, i bought LED's off ebay that came with their own resistor. But one of my electronical engineer student friends calculated a much lower resistance than what the resistors are rated. Is that going to be ok or should I just go out and buy the resistor closest to what the calculation dictates? I've read that if the resistor rating is too low it will overheat, but what if its too high?
--- End quote ---
Daisy or terminal block for the wiring.
Higher resistance is ok, the led will simply not be as bright. You could try it out and get the lower ohm resistor if you need to.
somunny:
I'm also preparing to wire up a lighted cp. FWIW, here's the method I'm going to use. It's a combo series/parallel array:
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
When you use the calculator set the output to wiring diagram. That will give you an idea of what you wiring should look like.
Oh, and I would definitely say solder the connections, also.
Steve
MovingTarget:
--- Quote from: somunny on March 03, 2006, 10:46:47 pm ---I'm also preparing to wire up a lighted cp. FWIW, here's the method I'm going to use. It's a combo series/parallel array:
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
When you use the calculator set the output to wiring diagram. That will give you an idea of what you wiring should look like.
Oh, and I would definitely say solder the connections, also.
Steve
--- End quote ---
Okay, now I'm confused a different way. I ran that wizard and it's saying connect the - from the LED to the resistor and that wasn't how I understood it should work.
Questions:
1. Does it matter which way the current flows through the resistor?
2. Does it matter which prong the resistor is connected to on the LED? should it come off the + or -?
3. I can't find the resistence for the resistors I bought. I think they're 100 but not sure. Looks to me like the colors are brown, black, black, black, yellow but could be yellow, black, black, black, brown (thus question 1). I tried to figure this out using this link http://www.elexp.com/t_resist.htm but I don't get it.
HELP!! My soldering iron is getting hot as we speak.
RandyT:
--- Quote from: MovingTarget on March 03, 2006, 11:45:19 pm ---
Okay, now I'm confused a different way. I ran that wizard and it's saying connect the - from the LED to the resistor and that wasn't how I understood it should work.
Questions:
1. Does it matter which way the current flows through the resistor?
--- End quote ---
No.
--- Quote ---2. Does it matter which prong the resistor is connected to on the LED? should it come off the + or -?
--- End quote ---
It shouldn't matter. It just needs to be in series with the circuit.
--- Quote ---3. I can't find the resistence for the resistors I bought. I think they're 100 but not sure. Looks to me like the colors are brown, black, black, black, yellow but could be yellow, black, black, black, brown (thus question 1). I tried to figure this out using this link http://www.elexp.com/t_resist.htm but I don't get it.
--- End quote ---
The "yellow" is probably gold, which is the tolerance marking for 5%.
It's sounds like 100ohm to me. Brown, Black, Black , Black (multiplier) ends up as 100 x 1. The confusing part is that the same value can be expressed, as it is on the 100 ohm resistors I have, as Brown, Black, Brown (multiplier), which is 10 x 10.
If you are unsure, check it with an ohm meter, but I think you have a 100 ohm there.
RandyT