LED lighting newbie question

Pygmalion1 · Post by **Pygmalion1** » Sat May 14, 2005 1:54 pm

Hi all! I'm in the initial phase of construction of my 1/350 refit, and was considering my options for lighting the shuttlebay (it seems like a waste to have interior detailing that I can't see once complete).
Anyhow, I was thinking of using a simple series of LED's hooked up to and internal battery source. I got a plan to make the navigatonal deflector easily removable for battery changes (it seems like there's enough space in the engineering hull to hold a few 9-volts). I've never attempted to add lighting to a model before and am just doing some fact-finding.
I've found some LED's at a local electronics megastore that are labeled as "Super Bright" white 3.6Vf 20ma, 6.4 candelas ($18 for a pack of 5 - geez!!). Do these sound up to the task? I have but a vague sense of what I'm doing, but it seems like I could get away with wiring three of these together in a series directly to a single 9-volt battery without having to add a resistor. Is my logic correct? How long could I expect the battery to last? Hmm... maybe I could hook up another loop and light some of the windows! Man, this model just has so many possiblities!
Thanks in advance.---J

en'til Zog · Post by **en'til Zog** » Sun May 15, 2005 2:04 am

HI, Pygmalion1. Lessee... You might think about using a plug-in power supply (commonly called a 'wall wart') to supply power to your model. That way you can use a REGULATED 12 volt DC supply to power strings of 3 @ 3.6 volt LEDs. 3.6 x 3 = almost 12, with a small resistor for each string of 3 - that's fairly efficient.

Using a 9 volt battery, and sets of two LEDs in series, you're left with 1.8 volts leftover which is a bit too much excess to NOT use a resistor.

For WHITE LEDs, try JAMECO electronics - www.jameco.com - 'cause they have white LEDs for $1.09 @ - a bit cheaper.

And, yeah. SOOOO many possibilities!