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May not be the best place to post this, but looked like my best option.
Excuse my COMPLETE stupidity on this subject, but I apparently missed this in grade school!
I purchased some LED strips, etc. from Oznium that I want to test on the bench. I do not have a spare car battery and did not want to take up that much space unless necessary.
If I touch the wires from one of my LEDs to a small 9V battery, it lights up. I purchased one of those large 6V lantern batteries yesterday, but when I try that I get nothing.
(1) Is that normal for the 6V battery to not light up an LED designed for a 12V system at all, or do I have a bad battery?
(2) When testing with the smaller (sized) 9V battery (smoke alarm type), when the LED lights up, will it be the same brightness as with a 12V battery in the car?
(3) Are there any type of 12V sources I can buy to use for bench testing that don't take up much space?
May not be the best place to post this, but looked like my best option.
Excuse my COMPLETE stupidity on this subject, but I apparently missed this in grade school!
I purchased some LED strips, etc. from Oznium that I want to test on the bench. I do not have a spare car battery and did not want to take up that much space unless necessary.
If I touch the wires from one of my LEDs to a small 9V battery, it lights up. I purchased one of those large 6V lantern batteries yesterday, but when I try that I get nothing.
(1) Is that normal for the 6V battery to not light up an LED designed for a 12V system at all, or do I have a bad battery?
(2) When testing with the smaller (sized) 9V battery (smoke alarm type), when the LED lights up, will it be the same brightness as with a 12V battery in the car?
(3) Are there any type of 12V sources I can buy to use for bench testing that don't take up much space?
Thanks... Sorry I am so stupid on this!
You can pick up a 12v bench power supply that plugs into 110v house current from walmart or radioshack for under 30.00. I have one and use it pretty frequently. Most come with positive and negative terminals along with a cig lighter port.
You can pick up a 12v bench power supply that plugs into 110v house current from walmart or radioshack for under 30.00. I have one and use it pretty frequently. Most come with positive and negative terminals along with a cig lighter port.
you have an old desktop computer? take out the power supply and ground the "on" button wire in the harness. You can usually find the schematics of your brand power supply online. i have made a few of them, and they have both 12volt and 6 volt wires. not much current, but for just testing leds, they won't pull much
These leds must have resistors built in? Because 9v would of blown them out.
You can get a battery that is smaller then a AAA battery that is 12v at home depot I believe. Used mainly for remotes.
They look like this.
And yes, if they have resistors built in, you are cutting down the 9v power and not reaching full brightness the 12-14v a car would be putting out, which would be resisted to around a final voltage of 3.5v is my guess.
If this is the leds on a roll type strip, I have built shoes that light up off that small 12v battery. They were BRIGHT!
Last edited by bill mcdonald; Jun 21, 2015 at 03:57 AM.
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Testing LEDs on the bench
