Go buy one of those HF solar charger/LED panel things. Not sure how
long it would last but they look pretty bright.
I was a Lowes a coupla years ago and they were selling a whole bunch of
discontinued solar LED sidewalk lights for $1 apiece, I bought a bunch
of them. They have a AA battery and little solar cell about 2"x2",
charges the battery enough to run the light most of the night and it is
fairly bright for a single LED.
Look on banggood or dx.com for cheap stuff to fool around with.
--R
On 1/11/16 9:54 AM, Curt Raymond via Mercedes wrote:
I was considering that before I ended up dropping my pack voltage.
I forgot to mention the specs on the light I built, 10x 35ma LEDs so about
350ma, I'm using 2500mah AA rechargeables (Amazon basics, cheap and low self
discharge) in D cell carriers, the case was originally designed for D cells but
rechargeable D cells are expensive and the charger is expensive. The AAs should
have power enough for 5 or 6 hours before the batteries sag too bad and they
get dim. Thats more than I was getting before with the fluorescent bulbs and
10,000mah D cells. I need to do some testing but I think this light will be a
good way to use up D cells that aren't powerful enough to run the camp shower...
-Curt
From: Dan Penoff via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Cc: Dan Penoff <d...@penoff.com>
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: [MBZ] Using LEDs - was OT: Politics are angrier polls
I got a bag of like 25 LEDs with dropping resistors for operation on 12VDC on Amazon for $8.00, I think.
Dan
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 11, 2016, at 9:22 AM, Curt Raymond via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
wrote:
You can buy LEDs with the resistor already integrated. In fact I think with
some you can even buy a PWM switching power supply already integrated so you
can run them at your chosen voltage. Thats what I'd intended to do but not what
actually happened.
The LEDs I ruined were surface mount package which wasn't as easy to solder as
I'd hoped. Looking around I found a bag of through hole LEDs I'd bought but
never used. Dropping one cell from my battery pack gives me 3.6v using
rechargeable batteries which I tested and appeared to be acceptable with my
35ma LEDs so I rewired the thing with those. I finished it last night and
testing shows that it works pretty well for a reading light (its intended
purpose) although it could stand a little work aiming the LEDs better.
I think you missed the point of my diode, I've got a single pole single throw 3
position switch. On low it activates one string of lights, on high it activates
both. The diode sits on the jumper from the high side so that it doesn't turn
on when low is called for.
Also in my experiments LEDs must be used in parallel which matches my
understanding of how they work. Because they are one way valves the electrical
pixies won't pass through like they would a normal valve. Certainly when I
strung them up in series they wouldn't do anything...
-Curt
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