Ultra bright LED's

Looking at it, its wired right. So not sure what it could be, maybe a dodgy joint or a bad resistor.
Make sure your -ve wire is on the flat spotted side of the LED as well.

What voltage did you use to test it? If you used too low of a voltage with the resistor. The resistor will burn off too much voltage so the LED wont get enough to activate. If you used to higher voltage (over what the LED is rated at) it has probably damaged the LED.

What voltage LED's did you get? If they are a different voltage to what you used to calculate the resistor value you can end up with the same effect.

This is where you just have to trouble shoot with different LED's, resistors and solder joints to work it out.

^^ Also if he held the soldering iron on it for too long he may have cooked the LED.

I got me 2 bright as cree LEDs the other day: http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZD0290

WIDELOAD wrote:Looking at it, its wired right. So not sure what it could be, maybe a dodgy joint or a bad resistor.
Make sure your -ve wire is on the flat spotted side of the LED as well.

What voltage did you use to test it? If you used too low of a voltage with the resistor. The resistor will burn off too much voltage so the LED wont get enough to activate. If you used to higher voltage (over what the LED is rated at) it has probably damaged the LED.

What voltage LED's did you get? If they are a different voltage to what you used to calculate the resistor value you can end up with the same effect.

This is where you just have to trouble shoot with different LED's, resistors and solder joints to work it out.

Hmm yes, I worked out that the flat side is negative.. they could have told me that in the instructions!!!


OK, I have 3.0-3.2V LED's, I did not use this voltage in my calculations, so i redid it and the resistor i needed is 220 Ohm, so is 270 too much.

I actually tested the lights through the battery, i plug it in to the car and touch the wires to where the plug wires are attached to the wiring box, and at one stage i touched the wires to the actual battery terminals. So maybe the 7.4V has damaged it, but touching the actual bulb through the terminals made it work, then when i wired it up it didn't?

What i'll do is wire up another one and see if i have the same problem?

Also if i didn't use a resistor what would be the resulting factor to my lights>

Best thing to do just keep trying. If after another couple it still doesn't work i would take it as the resistor being too higher value.
I would get to Jaycar and grab some 210 & 220Ω resistors. They are cheap enough though that you can experiment a bit and it saves waiting for ones to arrive home OS via fleabay. It wouldn't even surprise me if the resistors are a different value to what is indicated.
Ntoff's right as well, make sure you work quickly so you don't overheat any of the components and damage them.

If you don't use a resistors the LEDs will burn up and fail. Sometimes they change colour and then just go out, but i've had a couple recently literally pop.
You can get around using a resistors by doing funky wiring, but it wouldn't work that well because of the input voltage you are using.

WIDELOAD wrote:Best thing to do just keep trying. If after another couple it still doesn't work i would take it as the resistor being too higher value.
I would get to Jaycar and grab some 210 & 220Ω resistors. They are cheap enough though that you can experiment a bit and it saves waiting for ones to arrive home OS via fleabay. It wouldn't even surprise me if the resistors are a different value to what is indicated.
Ntoff's right as well, make sure you work quickly so you don't overheat any of the components and damage them.

If you don't use a resistors the LEDs will burn up and fail. Sometimes they change colour and then just go out, but i've had a couple recently literally pop.
You can get around using a resistors by doing funky wiring, but it wouldn't work that well because of the input voltage you are using.

Roger, at least my soldering is getting neater!!!

Sorted, not as bright as i wanted but still consistent and neat

If that was with the 270Ω resistors they wont be as bright as they could be. If it was with the correct value resistor it makes you wonder if the LEDs are actually the MCD listed in the ad.

Mine weren't that bright, until I removed the resistor. 2 x 3.2v LED's I figure that should be a 6.4v supply voltage, running off a 6v BEC. They're hideously bright (see video). I do realize this is probably bad but I'm just so damn curious as to how long they'll actually last without a resistor. I'm bored and like to see things fry

Another thing I did with mine, to solder them on I used those helping hands things, you know the ones with the aligator clips & magnifying glass you can use to hold stuff. They work pretty well as a dodgybrothers backyard heatsink if you don't have any actual heatsink pliers or clips.

This is my usual way of doing things:
Tin your wires first, both the LED and supply wires. Use flux even if you have flux cored solder.
Get your wire touching your LED, use helper hands to hold them together if your hands shake or you're affraid of burning your fingers.
Get a small blob of solder on the iron
Touch it to the 2 wires you're joining
Remember that you should have put the heat shrink tube on first
(swear)
Unsolder the joint
Put heatshrink over
Re-do solder joint :p

If you are running them in series (+ve to -ve to +ve to -ve etc.), that will be fine as the voltage drop across the LEDs works out to 6.4v as you said. If you are running in parallel (+ve to +ve & -ve to -ve etc.), you wont get long out of them without the resistor as you're running them at double the recommended voltage.

The resistor is to literally burn off the extra voltage when you run a low voltage item (such as an LED) from a higher voltage supply.
My Honcho has no resistors in it's LED circuits, cause i'm using a 6v power source with 3v LED's. I have pairs of the LEDs wired up in series, and them wire the pairs in parallel.

Thanks for putting up the Soldering steps as well, they'll come in handy for those who don't know how to do it. The only things i would add is make sure you tin your iron, make sure you use non-acid flux paste for electrical components and keep the iron tip clean.

I don't know if my flux is acid based or not, I just clean it off with isopropyl alcohol.

when i put them all together, all reds and all blacks, they light up nicely, considering there are 8 lights in all, it will do, it's an effective sight, when i finish the wiring and tidy up the same, i'll post a piccie.

So here they are, looks pretty good i reckon

Looks the goods mate...It's bright enough though, i reckon it's brighter than the set-up on my honcho.

Oh yeah, I'd watch out driving with those spotties on. Coppers might nail ya!

WIDELOAD wrote:Looks the goods mate...It's bright enough though, i reckon it's brighter than the set-up on my honcho.

Oh yeah, I'd watch out driving with those spotties on. Coppers might nail ya!

and the fog lights, they are illegal too.

Jayboy74 wrote:

WIDELOAD wrote:Looks the goods mate...It's bright enough though, i reckon it's brighter than the set-up on my honcho.

Oh yeah, I'd watch out driving with those spotties on. Coppers might nail ya!

and the fog lights, they are illegal too.

yet you see so many drivin with em on & nothin gettin done about it ,
i hit the lightforce on & burn the retnas out of there skulls , f#ck em....

Come to Toowoomba their are alot of sheepish drivers getting around with headlights only nowadays, 26 were given the heave ho by me over the weekend... No retreat, no surrender!!!

Also targeting Scale trucks at social and competition days!!! I think my next electrical project is a set of red/blues for the honcho, and maybe a better motor so that i can pursue those who choose not to stop.

Chase people like this? Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L85PFDfWM-0

WIDELOAD wrote:Chase people like this? Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L85PFDfWM-0

If I didn't know any better i swear they just made an RC movie on my actual daily life, except I always, ALWAYS catch my man!!!

Waiting patiently for an AZWA comeback

You won't catch me ya dirty copper lol cause I got no reason to go to toowoomba. Ha ha

But if I do you wouldn't book a mate would ya buddy lol

bazuky wrote:But if I do you wouldn't book a mate would ya buddy lol

ordinarily no... but for you

when i did the cree in mine i acautly used a cree brand luxion star, with 2 of them a led driver and some lense's i think i spent about 70 bucks, but it did throw a similar amount of light to my 3D LED maglite

there were some pics on the crawl pit a while ago

im trying to work out my next lighting idea at the moment, hopefully will be just as good and nowhere near the price!