put a light bar on my slash

[t-maxxracer32]

Hey guys yesterday I had an idea to add a light bar to my slash for when i go to the dunes and want to do some night time riding. Me and my freind went to radio shack and spend 14 bucks on all the parts needed and i still have 2 leds left for whatever i want. each led is 3.3 volts and put out 7000mcd which i thought was pretty sweet so i wired up 3 sets of series and then paralleled them together.

final result.i know its no where near perfect but its good enough for me. very sturdy and when i wanna do some real bashing it detaches very easy.







the pic where it shows all the leds on looks sorta strange because one of the leds is almost blue and the last doesnt look bright but its just the angle.

Ill get a video of it soon enough

lemmme know what you think.

thanks

[magman]

cool! Great job. wonder if someone could mount some lights a little higher somewhere just to allow light to shine a little further

[Krawlin]

Looks cool, but RPM beat you to it...

http://www.rpmrcproducts.com/product...sh3.htm#lights







I mounted their Slash bumper light bar kit on my E-Maxx's front bumper, works great until it cartwheeled and ripped a lens off of one of them, but then again they are alot more protected in a slash bumper. Still cool though, your setup is probably alot brighter just from having so many more lights.

[t-maxxracer32]

dang that slash with lights on top of it look sick. I was thinking about making another light bar like that, but then id have to cut up the body more and i dont really wanna do that.

[t-maxxracer32]

decided to put the leds on the esc fan lead

just want to be sure that this wont cause the ESC to burn up or anything right?

the leds should be pulling about 6.6 volts and 60ma?




anyone know why the leds in the middle are dimmer than others? could this possibly mean that they are about to burn out? there were a few times i connected the leds to higher voltages just to see what it could handle.. 1 of the leds actually did burn up. so are the middle leds close to the end of their life or is it just how i wired them up?

[simplechamp]

They should all be the same brightness in the current wiring config. I would check the solder joints, might have a bad/cold solder that's dropping a bit of voltage and the LEDs on that segment aren't getting as much.

T-Maxx; this is off topic, but can you tell me the dimensions of the battery tray on the slash?

[BrianG]

Regular LEDs typically need ~25mA to achieve full brightness. This is accomplished via a current-limiting resistor. Failure to use something to limit the current will result in them burning up, short life span, etc. I suspect the only reason they aren't burning up on you the way they are set up is because you have two in series, and each typically has a Vf of ~3.5v. Well, the BEC's 5.5v is not enough to fully turn them on, so that limits the current.

Here is a page I recently created for just this sort of thing. Be sure to read the help thingies because there is a lot of info there: http://scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/_led.html

[t-maxxracer32]

Originally Posted by Fast5sRevo88

T-Maxx; this is off topic, but can you tell me the dimensions of the battery tray on the slash?

roughly 1 11/12 inch by 6.5 inch

Originally Posted by BrianG

Regular LEDs typically need ~25mA to achieve full brightness. This is accomplished via a current-limiting resistor. Failure to use something to limit the current will result in them burning up, short life span, etc. I suspect the only reason they aren't burning up on you the way they are set up is because you have two in series, and each typically has a Vf of ~3.5v. Well, the BEC's 5.5v is not enough to fully turn them on, so that limits the current.

Here is a page I recently created for just this sort of thing. Be sure to read the help thingies because there is a lot of info there: http://scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/_led.html

thanks brian. Ill look more into that.

are you saying that i should put a resistor on it or with the 5.5 volts is it okay?

and how can i know or calculate if each is getting 25 ma?

thanks!