led help

[pro-rider46]

hey guys, im thinking of wiring up some leds to my quad and have them shining on my engine, i have everything needed, i just need to know what would be a good place to get a power source, i thought about my headlights but i dont know, any help is appreciated, thanks

[troyleepred719]

you can splice the power wire right into your headlight power wire, and have them turn right on with your headlights, or you can put your on switch on them and have them run whenever you want , and just ground them by each light....

[pro-rider46]

it wont hurt the leds will it, cause they are only good for about 15v i believe, and i dont know if that changes for the lights, and the lights are 35w, idk if that makes a difference.

[wilkin250r]

What machine is this going on?

Your lights are still 12V (or on some machines, 15V), and the wattage of your lights doesn't matter.


Do you know the difference between Series and Parallel wiring?

[pro-rider46]

i know the different between series, and parrelel, my dad is good with electricity, but he doesnt understand leds real well, this is going on a 2005 trx 450r, i thought about wiring into the lights power before the headlight switch, that way i can turn them on and off with out my headlight on.

hey i might have the series and parrellel mixed up. is series where you take the positive to the positive of the led and the neg. to the positive to the next led, and the final led take its neg. wire to the ground?, or is it were you take the leds and wire them individually to the power source?

[pro-rider46]

and the leds are safe up to 15v

[wilkin250r]

Series is where this is only one path for the electricity. So yes, you had it correct, the negative of one goes to the positive of another.


Didn't you get a bunch of LED lights that already had resistors built into them?

[pro-rider46]

yeah. i got them off ebay for a steal i would believe, i have 20 of 8mm 45,000 mcd (avg.) and pre wired with resistors for 6v-through 15v, well thats what the auction says. so series would not be the way to go. Correct? because that there would be large drop voltage with about 10 leds, and since they are wired with the resistors, it would not have enough voltage to run them.

can i take one positive wire and run it around to all the leds, and just connect the positive wires on the leds, and then run a second wire just for negative and then just ground it. would that work? i have a rocker switch also that has three prongs. ones neg. the middle long one is load, and the other small one is pos. i just wanted to add that, if that makes a difference.

thanks

[wilkin250r]

Originally posted by pro-rider46
yeah. i got them off ebay for a steal i would believe, i have 20 of 8mm 45,000 mcd (avg.) and pre wired with resistors for 6v-through 15v, well thats what the auction says. so series would not be the way to go. Correct? because that there would be large drop voltage with about 10 leds, and since they are wired with the resistors, it would not have enough voltage to run them.

can i take one positive wire and run it around to all the leds, and just connect the positive wires on the leds, and then run a second wire just for negative and then just ground it. would that work? i have a rocker switch also that has three prongs. ones neg. the middle long one is load, and the other small one is pos. i just wanted to add that, if that makes a difference.

thanks

I'm not sure about the rocker, but you are 100% correct on all the wiring. You could not wire them in series, you wouldn't have enough voltage to run them.

Yes, one positive wire to ALL the positive wires of the LEDs. And then one negative wire. This would put ALL the LEDs in parallel.

Just keep in mind that if every LED is pulling 20mA, that's about 0.25 watts each. You can add a lot of LEDs, but not an unlimited amount. 20 is fine (5 Watts), but 100 LEDs would be 25 watts, which would put a significant load on your electrical system.

[pro-rider46]

thanks wilkin. i am probably going to put on about 10, and im going to put about 4 on for my brake light, and me and my dad have the switch figured out, and we are doing in the way that i said earlier, and whenever i get my frame painted and engine rebuilt i will take some pictures of it. and post them up here, thanks again