incredibly cheap LEDs

[req 5,000+ posts]

ok guys. heres the best place in the world to buy your lighting needs from.

the MCD rating is the 'brightness' of the light- an optical mouse is roughly 5000mcd (micro candela) for comparison ... they are mostly 5mm or 3mm things. you WILL need a resistor to hook them to 12v battery. you can get them there as well. there is a tutorial on how to hook these up, make sure you read it before you buy anything if you dont know what you are doing.

1000 micro candela = 1 candela

1 candela = 1 lumen (regular unit of light)

so now you can compare.

and you will need to learn to solder.

LS diodes

lots of useful information, INCLUDING a link to a LED resistor calculator on its tutorial page.

ill post a pic of my trunk with these inside.

superbrightleds.com is another site to get leds from, but lsdiodes has more variety and a better website.

if you are looking to light up your car. this is the route for you. personally, ive ordered from them 3 times, and its taken no longer than a week to get my stuff. like i said, i should have pictures in the next 2 days.

Click to read more...

 

[jujumantb 10+ year member]

LEDs > neons/cathodes

Depending on the effect you want I guess //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wave.gif.002382ce7d7c19757ab945cc69819de1.gif

They can give you a spotlight affect if you angle them. Crazy bright things, you dont need many.

And you dont NEED resistors if you know how to wire em, I didnt use em.

http://tig-ol-bitties.net/images/litup1.JPG

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

well. imo its eaiser to just get a resistor per led, its eaiser to place them in 'farther locataions' and ground them close to where they are mounted so you only have to run 1 wire

you can usually hook about 3 leds up to 12v depending on the FORWARD VOLTAGE (around 3~3.5v) but they might be dimmer or whatever, so hooking 2 up to 12v with a resistor is common.

is that amp underneath somthing to get the square light look?

btw, make that picture a little smaller please?

 

[jujumantb 10+ year member]

Its just more soldering to add all those resistors //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

If you have 3.5volt max LEDs like I did, just wire 4 of them in series, then if you need another 4, parallel that group to the first group. The only time reistors are practical is when you, in my example, need less than a group of 4. And yes there is a carpetted piece over the amp/eq/line driver.

http://tig-ol-bitties.net/images/notlitup2.JPG