I saw some LED's at autozone that are powered by a little battery so you don't have to mess with wiring them into your car or motorcycle's wiring system. They cost 20 dollars though, and it was a 4pack, powered by one small battery, I only needed two, because i'm only planning to light up 2 places on my motorcycle, and the battery was an odd size, which makes them expensive, and i have a huge AA stockpile. So i went to radioshack and bought two battery holders, a switch to keep up by the handlebars, and two 8000mcd 10mm blue LEDs.
I just burned up both LEDs so obviously there's something missing from my equation. My understanding of electricity isn't that advanced. I no doubt needed some kind of inline resistor.
The information on the LEDs(which i will have to go buy more of) is FW Current 20mA, FW supply: 3.2v (typical), 3.8(max).
These battery holders have all of the batteries in series, a AA is 1.5v so I would need to wire them in parrallel to give 3 volts, which should be close enough for the LEDs right?
So what else do I need in this equation to spare the LEDs such a horrible fate? A resistor? if so, what value would the resistor need to be? I have some resistors from doing alarm work but they're only 3.3k and 2k. I can go buy different resistors if needed though.
I just burned up both LEDs so obviously there's something missing from my equation. My understanding of electricity isn't that advanced. I no doubt needed some kind of inline resistor.
The information on the LEDs(which i will have to go buy more of) is FW Current 20mA, FW supply: 3.2v (typical), 3.8(max).
These battery holders have all of the batteries in series, a AA is 1.5v so I would need to wire them in parrallel to give 3 volts, which should be close enough for the LEDs right?
So what else do I need in this equation to spare the LEDs such a horrible fate? A resistor? if so, what value would the resistor need to be? I have some resistors from doing alarm work but they're only 3.3k and 2k. I can go buy different resistors if needed though.
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