LED voltage help.

[stelerzman]

Need a little help with the maximum voltage that a 5mm led can take. I am under the impression that all of the 5mm led lights are 12 volt. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
The reason i'm asking, i want to run my led's off a 3 cell lipo. I have 5 led's on a light bar as of now, i want to add more in the near future. Also, what is the average rating of the resistor that is used in the light kits.
I just don't want to burn up the led's.

Thanks for you're help.

[Coops]

I could be completely out on this one but the red LED I just put on my power supply called for a 330 ohm resistor for 12V. I'm sure if you search there should be a chart or some sort.

[SMR 510RR]

Originally Posted by stelerzman

Need a little help with the maximum voltage that a 5mm led can take. I am under the impression that all of the 5mm led lights are 12 volt. Please correct me if i'm wrong.
The reason i'm asking, i want to run my led's off a 3 cell lipo. I have 5 led's on a light bar as of now, i want to add more in the near future. Also, what is the average rating of the resistor that is used in the light kits.
I just don't want to burn up the led's.

Thanks for you're help.

You should be able to find out the power requirements for your particular leds from where you bought them. Did it have specs on the packaging?

Plug those numbers into a led calculator (google it) and it will tell you what resistors you need and if you can wire them in series to eliminate the resistors.

[cogfounder]

umm, try this....

there are so many LED CALCULATORS out there I cant
recomend any one over the other anymore


http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=...w=1486&bih=689



.

[JesterSpec]

first you need to decide if you want to run them in series or parallel.

MOST, not all, white/blue led's are rated 3.6v, and rated at 20-25mah. if you run 4 in series, you will not need a resistor. If you are running 3, then you'll need to get the correct led to drop to 9v into the led.

http://ledz.com/?p=zz.led.resistor.calculator

I'm no expert, but I have been toying with them for a long time.

If you run 5, I'd suggest running them parallel, and just use the calculator that I linked to to figure out the resistor you need.

[stelerzman]

Great, thanks for the info. I guess i got to vague with the question.

These are 12 led light set i got on Ebay, there are all wired up with the resistor. I cut the solder point of so i could untangle the individual Led. I only used 5 out of the set for now. Can i plug the set of 5 led's to a 3 cell lipo? All led's wire in parallel.
If i do, will the voltage be to much for the led to handle?
Thanks.

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by stelerzman

Great, thanks for the info. I guess i got to vague with the question.

These are 12 led light set i got on Ebay, there are all wired up with the resistor. I cut the solder point of so i could untangle the individual Led. I only used 5 out of the set for now. Can i plug the set of 5 led's to a 3 cell lipo? All led's wire in parallel.
If i do, will the voltage be to much for the led to handle?
Thanks.

The post before yours gives the answer.....yes, it will be too much voltage & you need a resistor.

[stelerzman]

Ok, but all of the led's have there own resistor, so 5 led's with 5 resistors. Am i in the same situation, to muck voltage?

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by stelerzman

Ok, but all of the led's have there own resistor, so 5 led's with 5 resistors. Am I in the same situation, to much voltage?

Ahhhh....you didn't state that before. What you have appears to have a correct dropdown resistor for each LED, thus, not a concern.

If there was a resistor for the whole group, then you DO have an issue.

Based on what you are stating, I believe you are good to go.

[stelerzman]

Ok, great. Thanks, I'll give it a try with a 3 cell lipo and let you know what happens.

[stelerzman]

For everyone's info, if you have purchased an led light kit with the resistors included and want to connect them to a 3 cell lipo you're in luck. The info i gathered is useful. I tried the info that was given to me by members of RCC. All the info is useful, and yes you can connect a installed resistor LED light kit to a 3 cell lipo as long as you are installing a 5 LED light set or more and as long as they are wired in parallel.









This is just an example, I had them plugged in for at least 5 minutes, all the Led's stayed on the whole time. I see no problems with this setup.
Thanks to all that posted and helped with the solution to the question.

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by stelerzman

For everyone's info, if you have purchased an led light kit with the resistors included and want to connect them to a 3 cell lipo you're in luck. The info i gathered is useful. I tried the info that was given to me by members of RCC. All the info is useful, and yes you can connect a installed resistor LED light kit to a 3 cell lipo as long as you are installing a 5 LED light set or more and as long as they are wired in parallel.




This is just an example, I had them plugged in for at least 5 minutes, all the Led's stayed on the whole time. I see no problems with this setup.
Thanks to all that posted and helped with the solution to the question.

They look good! Also, thanks for following up, not everyone does.

[stelerzman]

No problem. I also hate when people ask for help then get the help and let people hanging.
Again, thanks for the help..