I have my table and track laid out and I want to do some track lighting so I can run some night races. It would be 10-20 street lights (maybe LED's for this???) and 1 larger bulb on each end of the track. Im also working on my lap timer stuff. Thats the background of the project so far.
I've read Greg Braun's website about the LED lap timers and I have all my lights set up (under and above track), Im just not too sure about power. He says to power these infrared LED's with a 12v source. The only thing close to a 12v power supply I could find was my ancient Aurora power pack. It says that its 14vDC max power. I noticed Greg says to use a 470 Ohm resistor on the overhead LED's but Im wondering if that is based on if the LED's are operating under 12v of power?? My power supply would be 14v max, but would the other lights on the track create enough draw to lower the voltage to around 12v average for everything on the power circuit? I really dont know much about electronics and what kind of power LED's can handle. I was affraid the 14v power supply could fry the LED's, and I dont like wasting money so the fewer of those I ruin the better. I will likely do a lot of racing w/out the track lights until they get built so I need to make sure the max voltage of the power supply wont blow out the LED's.
Any advice on this would be great. Thanks gents!
~Dan
I've read Greg Braun's website about the LED lap timers and I have all my lights set up (under and above track), Im just not too sure about power. He says to power these infrared LED's with a 12v source. The only thing close to a 12v power supply I could find was my ancient Aurora power pack. It says that its 14vDC max power. I noticed Greg says to use a 470 Ohm resistor on the overhead LED's but Im wondering if that is based on if the LED's are operating under 12v of power?? My power supply would be 14v max, but would the other lights on the track create enough draw to lower the voltage to around 12v average for everything on the power circuit? I really dont know much about electronics and what kind of power LED's can handle. I was affraid the 14v power supply could fry the LED's, and I dont like wasting money so the fewer of those I ruin the better. I will likely do a lot of racing w/out the track lights until they get built so I need to make sure the max voltage of the power supply wont blow out the LED's.
~Dan