We have a older boat with 12V DC lighting. I would like to rewire the
existing fixtures with current LED components. Can anyone advise me
on the specifics of this project? I know I can get components from
theledlight.com. I need advice on specific components, resistors
etc.
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You need to know which LED's you plan on using.
Also, LED's are polarized which means they'll only work
in one direction..
Any ways.
Assuming you have some common LED which could be around
1.7 volt of a drop, lets say 25 ma's of drain on the power source.
Taking your 12 volts into consideration, you would need a resistor
to drop the current to the diode.
R = (SourceVoltage-LEDVoltage)/LEDcurrent =
(12-1.7) / 0.025 = 412 Ohms.
Wattage needed for this.
W = (12-1.7) * 0.025 = 0.2575
I think a generic 1/4 R should work for this.
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You can place these diodes in series.
assume you use 4 in series 6*1.7 = 10.2 volts required..
You need to keep the required voltage below what your
supply voltage is because the diodes need current flowing
through them..
Now with this, you can use a different value R in series.
R := (12-10.2)/0.025 = 72 ohms..
A note that you should know, the closer you get to the
source voltage using mulitple LEDS in series and lowing
the R value, the more shoft of brightness you're going to
see when the battery voltage starts to drop.
So you may want to use a lower series count of LEDS into
an array cluster.
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