Re: All About LED's
 

Hi there!

interesting thread so far. I must admit, I am a very lazy bum, so I usually opt for constant current drivers instead of resistors.

Constant current drivers are quite expensive, but somehow "fire and forget".. ;) ..just add it and forget about power settings (and -a nice side effect- also forget about power surge or fading leds when the motor is pulling to many amps etc.)

Here's my source (of both leds and drivers):

Constant Current Driver


Btw. I recently bought both the lightning starter kit and a pico switch from Dimension Engineering. Absolutely fantastic stuff!!!

I will be using the starter kit for a light bar

..and the Pico Switch (no need for the battle switch) to switch a siren.

Cheers

Pip

Re: All About LED's
 

Very nice thread. I have one question tho. Had anyone use the under sleeper cab light for the king hauler from gardentrucking. I am curious to know how I need to hook them up with the mfu if it's possible. I spoke to Ric from gardentrucking and he was unsure how they needed to be wire in, all he said was that they require 7.2v to light up, each side has 8 LEDs total. If someone could shed some light on these will be great. Thank you

Re: All About LED's
 

I don't have any experience with MFUs but what I would do is find a relay switch and trigger it to close by wiring it to one of the outputs that the MFU uses to turn on it's own LEDs. Then whenever you turn on the lights controlled by the MFU, the relay will close and send power to the step lights. You could easily wire any extra LEDs to the same relay and their would be no limit to the number of LEDs you could add. The only limit would be the current capacity of the relay itself. Another option would be to control the relay switch with a free channel, if you have one.

Re: All About LED's
 

Im way late on this as the last post is from 2 years ago, but i dont care..just wanted to thank Espeefan for spending so much time with the diagrams. Whats a great resource for someone who is planning to light up a model like myself. THANKS!

Re: All About LED's
 

Nathan, great info! How you found any nice tiny terminal blocks?

Re: All About LED's
 

Jason and Scott, thanks. Glad this little write up is still useful. Once I start wiring up my Kenworth, I'll update this thread with some photos of how I did it.

Scott, I've been digging around the web, looking for smaller terminal strips, and I've found a few varieties, but I'm still on the search for something smaller. Here is a terminal strip I bought from www.allelectronics.com. I used this on my Tamiya F-350.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ringbegins.jpg

They are small-ish, and space isn't so tight on Tamiya trucks, but I'd still like to find something smaller for the really tight spots. Maybe half this size. I'm going to be running 36 gage wire, so I can afford a smaller terminal strip. As long as I can find one!

Re: All About LED's
 

Mr. Ric sells some. Don't know if you've seen his

Keith

Re: All About LED's
 

Thanks for the suggestion, Keith. Looking at what Ric offers just gave me an idea!

Re: All About LED's
 

heres a crude led controller i came up with some parts i had laying around.

http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6f5cc673.jpg

instead of terminal blocks i used pcb board and header pins.... then run the regular servo connectors to which ever leds. the center bank is clearance power, and the 4 offset are turn and headlight circuits.

Re: All About LED's
 

Glad to see people are still keeping an eye on this thread. I still use it when I need to refresh my memory. Don't forget the pictures when you get some Nathan. Thanks again for all your helpful info.

Re: All About LED's
 

Goose, nice job on the electro-mechanical switches to run your lights. Way back before I knew anything about other methods of turning lights on and off, I had the same exact idea. A limit switch activated with a servo arm and cam type system. Really a very effective and simple way to do things on a budget!

A couple months ago I picked up a new RC truck. This time an Axial SCX-10 Jeep Rubicon. Just a quick build so I would have something to run again. Happens that a friend of mine is also into the RC rock crawlers, and so am I. We got together in late fall to run our trucks. Anyway, I thought I'd like to dress up my Jeep a little bit with some lights, so I came up with a really simple lighting system of my own.

If anyone is curious to see a real world example, here's how I did it.

First the electrical schematic -

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps6e5d6128.png

For clarity's sake, I didn't include the fog lights, but they are wired in with my parking lights. It is very easy to add, change, or modify this print to suit your own project. I used three toggle switches, but you could easily add more, or even replace the toggles with some other means of switching the lights on or off. This was a budget minded build, and I run my Jeep with a 3 channel radio, so I opted to keep it simple, with toggle switches.

My body (and front bumper) can be separated from the chassis with the Deans B4 and B2 micro plugs I used. To keep things neat I used one common (black) wire for all of the LEDs. To turn the LEDs off or on I am only switching the hot (red) wires with the toggles. My toggles are SPDT (single pole double throw) switches. Most of the wires under the body are shrunk wrapped together with heat shrink, to consolidate and keep things neater. I used some hot melt glue to secure the wires to the underside of the body. This is a lexan body, so the hot glue didn't wreck a thing, but I would suggest you be careful if you choose to use this same method on a ABS body. I don't think the glue is hot enough to melt the plastic, but you never know! It does a good job of keeping the wires out of the way, and the wires are very secure.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps784ae6cd.jpg

In this photo, I'm mainly trying to show my LED feeder wires, coming off the terminals of the Deans plug for my ESC. I am using a 3S LiPo to run all of the electronics on my Jeep, including the external BEC. The 4 pin Deans, which connects to the harness inside the body is also there.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psfcf820b7.jpg

A quick picture of the 2 pin micro Deans plugs that I used to give me the ability to remove the front bumper on the Jeep. If I ever need to pull the chassis apart, I can easily take the bumper off.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps1225b309.jpg

Here's a photo of my toggle switches. They are mounted to the side of my custom electronics box, which happens to be a HiTec servo package. :D It worked perfect to fit all the electronics inside. We run our crawlers in harsher conditions, so I thought it would be a good idea to protect the ESC, BEC, and receiver better. Anyway, the toggles are all wired in parallel, and the juice comes from the positive (hot) feeder wire, straight off my battery pack.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps2df9426d.jpg

Front bumper with lights, and some of the wires.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps4cf060ff.jpg

Headlights, parking, and off road lights can be seen here.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psa4ca179c.jpg

Tail lights much the same, but simpler because there are only two.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psdf879618.jpg

Finally, one of the underside of the body, with the wires ran and secured. Pretty simple really. Any model could be wired in a similar fashion. The real test will come with those trucks that have chicken lights everywhere! :D Maybe mine will be one of them.... if I ever get them done.

Yeah, I know, it's not a semi truck, but the principals are all the same. Just thought I'd add some photos to give a better example. Schematics are one thing, but then there is the actual wiring.

Here are some finished pictures. Enjoy.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psda398e96.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps00bbaaa2.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psd835cec2.jpg

Re: All About LED's
 

Thanks a bunch for the pictures Nathan. Really awesome and Clean job. I'm starting another build for the March 15TH meeting in Brookville, PA. I'm so thankful to have all this info as a reference. I will be visiting this thread a lot with my build. Unfortunately my memory isn't what it used to be. Due to a car accident back in 2003. But with a little reading of your posts I'll be back in the game in no time. Thanks again!!!
:)

Re: All About LED's
 

You're welcome John. I am just glad that you and Cindy are doing well after that accident in December. God Bless!

Re: All About LED's
 

Hey so being a techy and all as long as you have the channel or receiver setting for the light out put will be able to wire them with the correct resistor or relay inline in series as very similar to your standard house hold Christmas lights I do have few certifications in advanced electronics ima little rusty but can definitely find some answers if need be

Re: All About LED's
 

Not sure I understand your question 100%.

If you want to trigger a relay 'on', from a radio receiver channel, to run a string of LEDs in series, with the correct resistor, then yes, you can do that. The relay allows you to activate the lights, with a low voltage, low current control signal, and to power a load with a separate, higher voltage, or higher current source. If that makes sense, and answers your question?

Re: All About LED's
 

I use http://www.dimensionengineering.com/products/picoswitch its a pico switch, you could use a battle switch as well, either one would work fine. wire it all up like you would and put this on your power. uses a channel on your receiver and works very good! I love mine

Re: All About LED's
 

Tamiya MFU clear red ...anyone know where to get these, or a substitute..? I need more...

Many Thanks...

Re: All About LED's
 

Anyone? Clear red MFC-01 LED source?

Thanks

Re: All About LED's
 

Look here to get the part number http://www.tamiyausa.com/pdf/pl/56511.pdf

Then go here http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/ite...uct-id=7175096

OR use Google to search for the part number 7175096 for other options..

Cheers

Re: All About LED's
 

Water clear T1 (3mm) LEDs in red.

http://www.lc-led.com/Products/department/2

Seems to be a lot available on E-Bay too, if that's an option for you.