Wiring LED TO helmet

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Fuffuloo 117 said:
that's useful

how do you put the lights into the helmet anyways?


what do you mean? i used a pair of scissors to put holes in the helmet they stay pretty well if the hole is made small enough. but i assume hot glue can be used.
 
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Agent Orange said:
what do you mean? i used a pair of scissors to put holes in the helmet they stay pretty well if the hole is made small enough. but i assume hot glue can be used.
Ok, so you just poke the led's through the holes, then. What do you reccomend doing with the swith and battery? Embedd it in the padding?
 
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hey, not sure if this is right but as fas as i know you can wire up four leds this way(see pic) if i wrong plz let me know cuz I'm planning on using this for my gun, helm and suit.

note:i think you can split off more then twice but I'm not sure. also if you want you can put the switch after the split therefore allowing you to put the separate led groups on diff switches (ie:cooling fans and lights)
 
flying_squirl said:
hey, not sure if this is right but as fas as i know you can wire up four leds this way(see pic) if i wrong plz let me know cuz I'm planning on using this for my gun, helm and suit.

note:i think you can split off more then twice but I'm not sure. also if you want you can put the switch after the split therefore allowing you to put the separate led groups on diff switches (ie:cooling fans and lights)


Not quite, that picture won't work right.

Here, fixed for ya!

schematic.jpg



The location of the switch is a moot point, however. You could have it right before the battery, after the battery, before first LED, after last LED...between the first 2 and last 2 LEDs...anywhere you want it. They will only engage if there is a complete circuit, which only occurs if the switch is in the ON position.

And you can make these wires for the most part as long as you want. don't get TOO length happy because you'll lose voltage and waste power...but you could run a wire from the 2 LEDs on the left side around along the inside wall of the mouth piece to the two LEDS on the right, then either back along the same route to the battery, of if you wanted to the back of the helmet and around (incase you wanted to put a fan in later, or now, you'd have the infrastructure in place)

Another handy tip is don't solder the leads to the battery...buy yourself a cheap 9v battery box from radioshack as well...solder the leads to the battery box and that way you can REAL easily replace the battery, just pop it in and out.
 
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bobby j said:
just wanted to know where i could buy all this stuff

Radio shack. It'll cost you probably $10-15 for all of the parts...and if you aint got a soldering iron, another $15 or so for a cheap-o iron and a tube of solder.
 
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Yeah, me too. Oh, and just for the record, you can fix that typing impediment by hitting the "Caps Lock" key.
 
Sikarian said:
Not quite, that picture won't work right.

Here, fixed for ya!

schematic.jpg
this wont work, as the voltage will be halved for each LED, so if they light at all they wont be nearly as bright. The original photo was correct as when you split it into two groups, each voltage will remain the same. Its the opposite principle as if you used 20 9 volt batteries, wired in parallel circuit for two LEDs wired in series as shown in the tutorial. The voltage would remain the same, but the maH (milli amp hours) would be multiplied by twenty. maH simply measures how long the output is sustained(AKA, the life of the batterys). The un-fixed diagram is the correct one.
 
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For the electronically challenged, I found this (oh so randomly) at the grocery store.

They're called Omega Personal Reading Lights, made to fit on a person's ear. They're like $3-4 online. They're really small and glow that bluish white. Each runs off 2 x Lithium CR2016 little batteries. According to the manufacturer, the light is good for 18 hours before battery change is required.

Seemed kind of neat /shrug. I'm gonna try it tweaking it to fit on mine since I'm feeling the Halloween deadline approaching. (It's not the purist way that I admire, but I figured I'd share that in case anyone else was running short on time or something.)

led.jpg

(The one I bought in a store)

led3.jpg

(Newer ones online)
 
Vex: Those look pretty good, but are you gonna take them apart and mod the switching? Or are you going to have to hit 4 separate little buttons?

And @ homsar66: The voltage applied to each led will remain the same no matter which way it is wired. The only difference between the wiring is that one is in parallel, and one is in series. The one that sikarian posted is in series, all leds will get their full voltage; however if any one of the leds go out the rest will too because the power goes through each light to get to the next.
 
Ruze789 said:
Vex: Those look pretty good, but are you gonna take them apart and mod the switching? Or are you going to have to hit 4 separate little buttons?

I was thinking about breaking them up, but I have some padding work to do first. I'll probably be ready to tinker with those lights a week from now.
 
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I didn't see anyone mention these, but when I do work with LED's this helps make a nice clean way to mount them. They are snap in LED holders from radio shack. Push these into the hole from above and slide the LED in from beneath the hole and it snaps into place. They work really well.

27yq3xi.jpg
 
MC Chris said:
Im new to thiese projects of making armour but was curious how do you wire the leds to a switch and battery (basically saying, i have no idea of anything to do with electronics)? im knew to these so please dont get to technical
i live in nz where can i get leds (there are no radio shacks
 
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Hmm, ran into some issues that, for some reason, I can't figure out.

I know it's something simple but I don't quite get why it's not at least working. I can get my 2x AA battery box to light up 1 LED by itself, flickering and overpowering of course, but with a 270 ohm resistor it gets a nice solid color glow. I can't for some reason get it to light up 2 LED's connected to each other.

~~> + LED - + LED - ~~> will not work. I can get each one by itself to light if I place either the positive or negative lead from the battery in the middle of them, but I can't get them both to light at once. Is 2 AA's not enough voltage to light up 2 simple LEDs? I could have sworn it was. :(

Also, apparently Radio Shack here in town doesn't sell white LED's any more. I bought a pack that I thought had whites but they were yellow, so I've got to go hunting and just use yellow for now to test the components with.
 
Sikarian said:
Hmm, ran into some issues that, for some reason, I can't figure out.

I know it's something simple but I don't quite get why it's not at least working. I can get my 2x AA battery box to light up 1 LED by itself, flickering and overpowering of course, but with a 270 ohm resistor it gets a nice solid color glow. I can't for some reason get it to light up 2 LED's connected to each other.

~~> + LED - + LED - ~~> will not work. I can get each one by itself to light if I place either the positive or negative lead from the battery in the middle of them, but I can't get them both to light at once. Is 2 AA's not enough voltage to light up 2 simple LEDs? I could have sworn it was. :(

Also, apparently Radio Shack here in town doesn't sell white LED's any more. I bought a pack that I thought had whites but they were yellow, so I've got to go hunting and just use yellow for now to test the components with.


I know I'm a bit new around here, but I've been engineering electrical circuits like this for years. Two AA's is only 3v, not enough for 2 LEDs. The average white LED from Radioshack (they're crap compared to real ones btw) needs 2.8v. So for two you'd need atleast 5.6v.

If you run two off of a 9v battery, you'll need a 180 ohm resistor.

I highly suggest you buy online, it's worth it. The Radioshack LEDs are low quality and crap. I, myself, have been selling online for years on sites such as Xbox-Scene.
 
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Gokussj5okazu said:
I know I'm a bit new around here, but I've been engineering electrical circuits like this for years. Two AA's is only 3v, not enough for 2 LEDs. The average white LED from Radioshack (they're crap compared to real ones btw) needs 2.8v. So for two you'd need atleast 5.6v.

If you run two off of a 9v battery, you'll need a 180 ohm resistor.

I highly suggest you buy online, it's worth it. The Radioshack LEDs are low quality and crap. I, myself, have been selling online for years on sites such as Xbox-Scene.

Can ya point me to the best deal site to purchase the parts? I've got the switch I need, I've got solder, and my iron is hot and ready. I've got cabling too, so all I really need would be a resistor (I bought a pack of 270 ohm resistors on the advice of my engineering buddy, think they might work) and the 4 white LEDs. Hopefully with a cheap shipping cost too to ship all that.
 
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