My son and I have a project that involves converting a strand of
christmas lights(110AC) to run off of 12v DC,no AC input.Is this
possible? If so what is involved?
Thank you for your help.
unravel the wiring,
your string will be electrically like a loop of lamps
.-------------------------------------------------------------.
| This is an ascii schematic, if the diagram appears garbled |
| try switching to a fixed-pitch font (courier works well) |
| pasting it into notepad works well on ms-windows. |
| in google groups selecting 'fixed font' (top right of page) |
| or view source (options) work too. |
`-------------------------------------------------------------'
eg if they are 3V lamps there will be 40 in the string
--o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-...-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-.
----------------------...---------------------'
cut it into 10 pieces with the same number of lamps in each.
connect one end of each to the positive terminal and the other
to the negative terminal
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
(+)|-o-o-o-o-|(-)
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
|-o-o-o-o-|
if you want to make it string-shaped again get some do this
(+)---+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------- ...
`-o-o-o-o-. `-o-o-o-o-. `-o-o-o-o-. `-o-o-o-o-. `-o-o-o-o-.
(-)-------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+ ...
Don't try to convert it back to 120V, it's not worth the risk.
Bye.
Jasen