Hi guys,
I am building an automated aquarium lid. For now I am setting up LED lights to be tied into my automated lights. I have LED strips that have 128 LEDs on them, and I will be using white, red and blue lights (for optimal plant growth). I am using a PC power supply. The white and blue LED strips require 12 volts DC, but the red ones need 8.2. Each strip uses about 1 Amp. I need to know how to bring the voltage down in a safe way from 12 to 8.2 volts.
I found this site that shows how to use Zener Diodes and a resistor:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...=clnk&gl=ca&client=opera&source=www.google.ca
The problem is that I need to have 4 LED strips connected to the same voltage source, meaning that the amperage jumps up to 4 Amps. Using that page, I can see that there are no Zener Diodes that can handle that amount of wattage that I need (about 33 watts). Can I use more than 1 diode and if so, what arrangement would I use? Would I have them connected in serial or parallel?
Thanks in advance!
I am building an automated aquarium lid. For now I am setting up LED lights to be tied into my automated lights. I have LED strips that have 128 LEDs on them, and I will be using white, red and blue lights (for optimal plant growth). I am using a PC power supply. The white and blue LED strips require 12 volts DC, but the red ones need 8.2. Each strip uses about 1 Amp. I need to know how to bring the voltage down in a safe way from 12 to 8.2 volts.
I found this site that shows how to use Zener Diodes and a resistor:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...=clnk&gl=ca&client=opera&source=www.google.ca
The problem is that I need to have 4 LED strips connected to the same voltage source, meaning that the amperage jumps up to 4 Amps. Using that page, I can see that there are no Zener Diodes that can handle that amount of wattage that I need (about 33 watts). Can I use more than 1 diode and if so, what arrangement would I use? Would I have them connected in serial or parallel?
Thanks in advance!