PDA

View Full Version : Battery + LED combo



petriomelony
10-26-2007, 08:06 AM
Hey everyone,

I just had a couple questions that need clarification, after reading the guides and such (just want to be sure, of course).

If I use a royal blue K2 and somehow procure a MR sound board, will I need a driver? the tutorial showing the conversion from stock MR vader to 3W lux just goes directly from the soundboard to the led, i think... however, the red has a lower forward voltage and current draw than the royal blue, so i was wondering if it'll still work?

my original plan without sound was to use two 700 mA buckpucks in parallel... except i'm not sure how to wire them in parallel. just V+ to V+, V- to V-, LED+ to LED+ and LED- to LED-, with all of those connecting to the corresponding places on the battery pack and LED? will that give the right configuration for 1400 mA to the K2?

also, is 7.4V too much for the MR soundboard? i wanted to use the NiMh battery pack for longer battery life. i know i can use it with just the direct that voltage to the MR sound board... buckpucks come with a 5V reference for IC's and such, right? would it work if i wired up the two buckpucks, right? i saw that 4.5 - 6V was recommended for the MR sound.

thanks, everyone.

*edit* WOW i just read somewhere that you could use a 5V regulator and buckpucks in parallel and then hooked one of the 5V references to the MR sound board?

*edit again* and would this work with a hasbro if i can't find an MR...

* and also, i don't see many people recommending the NiMh packs... is there some major downside to them?

Ghostbat
10-26-2007, 10:32 AM
My MR Annakin has been converted with an ultrasabers kit and it just directly replaces the old led strip with the luxeon, no additional resistance required.

I'm not sure it's getting all it really could out of the luxeon though, it would likely be a bit brighter if run off a puck or otherwise parallel to the sound board.

I'm not sure what you could get away with feeding the board, so far I still have the stock battery pack in place.

Novastar
10-26-2007, 01:25 PM
Hey everyone,
If I use a royal blue K2 and somehow procure a MR sound board, will I need a driver?The MR board is a driver. So, no.

However, a K2 blue will not be driven to its full potential through an MR board. This doesn't mean it won't light up... it just won't be driven at its best.



my original plan without sound was to use two 700 mA buckpucks in parallel... except i'm not sure how to wire them in parallel. just V+ to V+, V- to V-, LED+ to LED+ and LED- to LED-, with all of those connecting to the corresponding places on the battery pack and LED? will that give the right configuration for 1400 mA to the K2?Without a diagram of your wiring, I've no idea, except to say that--yes, given 1400mA to a K2 blue, green, white, cyan, etc. would be pretty close to ideal (1500mA).


also, is 7.4V too much for the MR soundboard?Yes. 6v would be the very max (and starting to push it). 5v is fine, and a pretty safe bet.

7.2 or so might work for some time--but your board will die quickly.

*edit* WOW i just read somewhere that you could use a 5V regulator and buckpucks in parallel and then hooked one of the 5V references to the MR sound board?

*edit again* and would this work with a hasbro if i can't find an MR...

* and also, i don't see many people recommending the NiMh packs... is there some major downside to them?There is nothing wrong with any battery choice... unless it is not appropriate for YOUR project, mainly due to size, run-time, and charging constraints/logistics. Some people prefer Alkalines because they are cheap. Others swear by NiMh and put up with using more cells. People such as myself swear by Li-Ion (NOT Lithium-Primary) for the x3 voltage boost per cell, better usage of space, and high energy density.

petriomelony
10-26-2007, 03:57 PM
here's what i thought it would look like:

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j168/petriomelony/circuit1.jpg

so the buckpucks are in parallel, hooked up to the LED and pack, and there's a switch somewhere to interrupt the circuit... but i'm not sure whether buckpucks work on momentary or latching.

here's the second configuration, with the MR board, or at least what i thought it would look like:

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j168/petriomelony/circuit2.jpg

the 5V+ reference from one of the buckpucks is being used to power the MR board, which is *not* hooked up as a driver for the LED. then it works on the same circuit switch as the LED, though, so it would be ok to have just one switch, i think? but i think MR works on momentary, but i'm not sure about that...

will this setup work with the MR? or a hasbro in the place of the MR? this is assuming the pack is of voltage 7.4V, which is why i'm using the 5V reference from the buckpuck (they say in the pdf that it's used for IC's and such.)

neophyl
10-28-2007, 01:15 PM
That last setup wont work with the MR

Several points, the MR board when wired up just to drive sound requires 6 wires, 5v positive, ground, 2xspeaker wires and then the 2 wires for its switch. If you wired the mr board like that you would lose any retract sound effect. Also the ground wire from the MR board should go back to the battery gound itself not the led ground star point. With a driver what is labelled as led ground might not actually be the same as circuit ground.

You also cant really use the 5v ref output of the led driver to power the MR board as then the mr only gets power when the led is on which is not how they are designed to be used.

You can either use a double pole switch to control both the mr board and led drivers at the same time or you use the MR board to switch power to the driver, either using a relay (not the best method) or something like a logic level mosfet.

petriomelony
10-29-2007, 05:40 AM
hmm, ok! that helps a lot. i was actually thinking, yea, that ground should be going back to the battery ground... but i didn't want to change the picture after uploading it :P and yea, i left out the speaker on purpose, but forgot that the MR used its own switch.

i think the replica red button switch that i'm getting (the graflex one) has more than 2 prongs on the bottom, it looks like 6 in the pictures, like 3 on each side... would i be able to wire the MR to one pair of prongs and then wire the LED circuit to another pair? the buckpucks and MR will work on a momentary switch, right? and then run them both off the same power source.