My Own LED for PF Conversion Help

[broomhandle]

Looking to do my own LED's in some trains, and possibly in some buildings. was thinking about getting a cheap pf connection and cutting it off, and using it as a hub to plug in with my own connectors a few LED's.

anybody does this? I know there was somebody in germany that did it, but was looking for some info, any resistors? what are the connection wires on the PF (ground, positive... etc) 3mm led's? i think?

any help would be great.

:)

[JopieK]

Well,

it is not too hard, you just need to have a look at ohms law first so get some basics in electronics...

[JopieK]

You could look at instructables.com.

[patje]

My link

greets patje

[F0NIX]

Well, will try to give you an clearer answer.

With LED's you need to know the data on the LED you are going to use. Often this is 3.2v (volt) forward voltage and around 20mA (Ampere).

And with this wizard/calculator you can find out what size of resistor you need to connect in serial with the LED.

http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz

You can connect several LED in serial. To calculate that, you just add the voltage for each LED, eg 2 LED's gives 6.4v, 3 LED's gives 9.6v and so on. The ampere will be the same.

Then, to how to connect the LED's:

Philo's page can be a good reference for any LEGO-electronics: http://www.philohome.com/pf/pf.htm

A little down the page you find the PF-cable explained. Or you can use a PF to 9v converter cable (PF extension cable)

I have used a 9v cables for my LED's and solder just one LED in serial with a 470 ohm 0.25 watt resistor on the cable. That way I can stack several 9V connector on top of each other and extend them with just a simple long 9v cable. And with that resistor I can safely use either 9V power supply or a 12V power supply without any danger to destroying the LED.

Edited October 24, 2011 by F0NIX

[andythenorth]

I've put LEDs in PF and RC trains - cutting cables and wiring them into screw-connector blocks. It's worth tinning the ends of the wires with solder if you have a soldering iron.

I used bright white LEDs. In my test, they didn't explode without resistors, but I've seen LEDs explode before from 9v, so I've wired resistors in. There's lots of electronics theory about LEDS in parallel or series, and calculations you can do, but I just wire a resistor to each LED.

II had to file down the plastic collar on the LED to get them to fit into technic bushes - clamp it in an electric drill and use a micro file.