posted
I'm no electrical engineer, and this has me thoroughly confused... I guess I need more than 2 hours of sleep in 3 days... Will the layout illustrated in the diagram below work to have an inline LED to show power? If not, how should I do it? Any help is appreciated!!! Thanks in advance!!
Thanks again!
-------------------- My Ride 1988 Camaro 305 TBI 2 Farenheit CK12Ds Lanzar 1200D - running 1-ohm stable 4 gauge power and ground wire RF 1 Farad digital capacior New amp rack in the works, too... Panasonic HU Lite-Glow Red Underbody Neons Lite-Glow 15" Red Interior Neon Dual Lite-Glow 6" Blue Tubes Under Front Seats. 145 dB w/ 2 Farenheits and the Pyramid!!!! Founder: How loud is YOUR thunder?!
posted
no, you do not want to wire the LED inline with your amp.
your amp (depending on it's size) will probably pull up to 60 or 80 amps of current.
the max current you can put THROUGH a LED is like 500 mA .. which is 0.5 amps.
What you have to do is wire the LED IN PARALLEL with your amp.
basically you take another small wire (like 16 gauge or whatever) and "tap off" your power wire (like I said, wired in parallel with your amp). Put a fuse on the small wire, and also a resistor (about 200 to 500 ohms will do) then inline with the fuse and resistor comes your LED. Connect the negative side of your LED to ground.
if you want, email me at lcleven@shaw.ca and I'll send you a picture I just made for another guy who wanted to do the same thing.
posted
Go to this site. It has a calculator where you put in the numbers and it tells what value resistor to use. http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/led.htm You should put in a voltage of 14.4 since that is the approximate voltage of when the car is running. And then get a slightly larger resistor. The specs given for the LED are maximum and when it it run at max the life will be shortened. If run past max you have a good chance of burning the led out.
Posts: 327 | From: Pleasanton & Sacramento Ca | Registered: Dec 2001
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