Electronics

beeks · Joined: 29 Dec 2005 Posts: 1

I'm building a custom motorcycle and I'd like to use the center brake light off of a car. The brake light has a number of LED's that are only on when the brakes are applied. I need them to be on when the lights are on and brighter when the brakes are applied. I've only had one basic electronics class so I'm a bit confused about how the brightness of LEDs is controled. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

neon · Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 593

there are LEDS and there are leds Basic is like this they the leds require a very minimumn of voltage to litght up and to make worst a very minimumn of current to make even more chalenging all of these parameters changes with each device not even mentioning the devices themselfes bright superbright ultra bright and so on. what you need is an LED a voltage source like a battery greater the 5v and a limiting resistor to limit the max.current. all of these devices follow the rule of power dissipation get them hot and they go on vacation a rule of thumb in your case will be 200 - 500 ohms [try] per device you cannot use one res. for all the LEDS unless you put them in series in your case i sugest you do that. need more help resubmit. you want to get fancy then the sky is the limit maxim69xx are one way. but in your case i would put aan lm317 regulator and use it as a current limiting device 10 ohm pot should do it. why use current instead of voltage simple only one residtor reguired.

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