Really simple question? HELP NEEDED! Fancy Dress LED'S

[mikey c]

Hi

I know this might sound strange but I'm going to a fancy dress party this Friday (16th March) as a FRUIT MACHINE!!

I want to put loads of LED'S on the front popping through. hopefully flashing!

I have no knowledge of electrics so can I just buy standard led's and wire them together wire thin speaker wire to a standard Battery?!?! (prob not I guess)

Please can some help me on this project and how I can archive my final goal of looking like a mental flashing fruit machine!!


Links from http://www.maplin.co.uk will help a lot on what to buy also.

Thanks in advance

Mike!

 

[breezer]

no.

you will need leds and a shunt resistor for each one, also leds only work one way round.

if you have the timeyou can do it, but you do need the time.

useless tip.

you can actualy buy a flashing led. now if you wire this led in series with 4 other leds it will make them all flash (on and off) at the same time

 

[RF Lighting]

The easiest thing would be one of those battery powered christmas light sets. Pre wired - no problem.


Not sure where you would get them at this time of year though

 

[davy_owen_88]

They don't flash but here is a set which you could modify.

Davy

 

[bernardgreen]

Try a search on this web site.

http://www.lyco.co.uk/

They had a range but may have been for Christmas only.

 

[MattChan]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ITAG=SPEC&ModuleNo=35843&doy=13m3#spec

Should do you OK.

If you look at the Data sheet on page 3 it shows that if you connect one of them directly across a 9V battery with the correct polarity you will have a flash frequency of about 2.5Hz and a 40mA "If" which is fine

If you assume a PP3 battery has a capacity of 200mAh then the LED's will continue to operate for

((n * 40)/200)hours where n is the number of LED's you have used.

so 5 LED's would only last an hour! and 10 would only last 30 mins...

 

[MattChan]

you will need leds and a shunt resistor for each one

Aren't shunts normally in parallel with a component?

1 series R per chain of standard LED's. So if you have a 9V supply and 4 standard LED's to light you would put 4 LED's in series and then a series R to drop 1V at the required LED current.

 

[DennisLS]

how I can archive my final goal of looking like a mental flashing fruit machine

[/quote]

I would "archive" it too, and go as a giant banana

 

[breezer]

you will need leds and a shunt resistor for each one

Aren't shunts normally in parallel with a component?

Yes, you are right i am wrong, thinking of something else

Iwould also suggest the tlc link option @1.50 cant go wrong