Thank you. This is the easiest and simplified tutorial I have found. You are a great teacher!!! I feel confident now in illuminating my displays for Halloween and Christmas.
Fantastic! We're Halloween fanatics along with everything else and it's just around the corner! Where does the time go! All the best with your projects.
Your videos are always so clear! I'd love you to do a tutorial on using arduino in a dio, as most vids on the topic are way too complicated. Much thanks!
@@RandomMakingEncounters I'd love to do a cyberpunk dio with lights that change color, go on and off, maybe even go from steady to flashing. Lots of simultaneous light effects. I know arduino is the way, but its been very hard to get my arms around. Thank you for your consideration!
Happy to help! This is my new favorite way of hooking up LEDs. Definitely not for high voltage, high amp applications but handy for nooks and dioramas! All the best!
Thank you so much! I love making nooks but have always been afraid of wiring and soldering, and so usually just go with fairy lights or LED tea lights and such. Your video and step by step guide for using copper tape makes it seem easier (or at least less frightening) than I thought. I might actually try to "wire" my next nook (Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" inspired)! Thank you for videos and happy making!!! 😃
Awesome!!! Labyrinth is a great inspiration. I think Brian Frouds art is absolutely the best in the genre. Never underestimate the power of fairy lights but a little basic LED wiring is well within everyone’s skill set. Good luck on your project!
Thank you so much for doing this comprehensive video. There are few video's available which fully explain how to actually add electrics safely but now I feel I could actually try it myself! Thanks again :)
Glad it was helpful. For the most part, LEDs are pretty straightforward. Soldering takes a tiny bit of practice but it's actually a good skill to learn. If you keep your voltages low, work with batteries, and watch out for shorts, it's pretty doable. All the best with your projects!
Electronics are often a mystery to me too! I continue to learn new things. LED lighting is a great intro to things like LEDs and resistors. All the best on your journey!
Great learning video! I have been into electronics for over 50 years! Your video is very accurate and the step by step process is easy to understand. Bravo! Thanks for sharing. Happy days and model on! 😎🇨🇦
@@valhalloran I get a lot of things through Amazon. However, the copper tape is used in stained glass and any hobby or craft store that has basic stained glass supplies will also have copper tape. The soldering irons for stained glass are probably a bit on the heavy duty side for soldering LEDs so I would look for something geared towards electronics. There are some good starter sets on Amazon as well. I have a few links to supplies in the description.
Ive been looking into using copper tape and LED’s for adding lights into my card making. After watching this informative video i want to use it for my booknooks too. Can i ask why you have used a resistor for each LED ? Ive not seen them used before in any of the other circuit videos ive seen
You bet! LEDs are quirky little components. If you deliver too much current to them, they can be damaged/destroyed (usually destroyed in the blink of an eye). Let's dive in! There are two ways to connect multiple LEDs in a circuit. You can connect them in series where the positive of one LED is connected to the negative of the next and the positive of that LED is connected to the negative of the next... and so on. The second way is to connect all of the positive LED legs to the main positive and all of the negative to the main negative/ground. I generally connect my LEDs to my circuits in parallel because they're usually spread out around the nook and I often mix and match different kinds of LEDs in the project (colors, flickering, etc.). Calculating resistor values is much easier and I can use lower voltage power sources... but why? There are two things we need to know about an LED when designing the circuit - the voltage drop and the current rating. I'm not an electrical engineer so I'm going to give you my really broad, art-major explanation of both of these. Voltage drop is the amount of voltage needed for each LED to light - usually 1.5 - 3.5 volts. Current rating is how much current the LED needs to light up properly - 20mA is a good ballpark number. Exceeding the current rating can cause the LED to go up in a little pop/puff of smoke (been there, done that). Here's the tool I use to calculate things that also describes some of this - ledcalculator.net/ Knowing all of these things, when we go to build our circuit, we need to deliver enough voltage to light the LEDs and limit the amount of current to just enough to work but not too much to fry. When wiring in series, each LED sucks up (drops) a bit of voltage starving it from the next in the series. If each LED needs two volts and you have three LEDs, you would need 6 volts going in. If you provide 6 steady volts, the calculator says you only need a 1ohm resistor... which is almost nothing. Keep in mind that 4 AA alkaline batteries will initially deliver more than 6 volts so your power source plays a big role and you need to design for a bit of wiggle room and err on protecting the LEDs in an over-voltage/over-current situation. When wiring in parallel, each LED gets the full voltage from the power source. If we keep our source as 6 volts, each LED would need a 200 ohm resistor to reduce the current to the correct level. However... I could also reduce my power supply to 3 volts and lower the resistor to 51 ohms. Even better, I could keep adding LEDs in parallel without needing to bump up the voltage since each LED is basically connected directly to the battery without being influenced by other LEDs in the circuit. One resistor per LED is incredibly easy to understand at the cost of more connections and more resistors. It's not elegant... but it's simple... kinda like me. It's possible to use lower voltages and wire in series but you will reach a point where you need to start to break up your series LEDs into chunks when the voltage drop across the LEDs exceeds the circuit voltage. You then end up with a mix of series and parallel in your design. I hope that all sorta kinda makes sense. Since I mix and match LEDs in my projects, each LED will have different voltage and current requirements. I'm a keep it simple kinda person and don't want to math too much. It's very easy to plug each LED into the calculator and come up with a resistor value for each in the circuit. One thing to note... you don't have to be spot on with the resistor values as long as it's a bit above the calculated value. There's a fair bit of slop and too big a resistor means the LED will be dim or not light at all where too small means a puff of smoke. I think it's a fair statement to say that LEDs should always have some form of current limiting resistor... even a really small one. Here's a great deep-dive resource for almost everything you would ever want to know about LEDs - learn.adafruit.com/all-about-leds/ I hope this is helpful. The approach I take is really just trying to keep it simple and understandable to me. I could certainly run LEDs in series and end up with a simpler circuit and fewer resistors but resistors are cheap and a simpler circuit only means less wiring... not simpler to understand... at least for me :) All the best with your projects. LEDs really make everything better and can add so much to a diorama/nook. It's well worth figuring out an approach that works for you. I've burned up a fair number or LEDs but they're relatively inexpensive compared to the microcontrollers I've fried! LEDs are the perfect gateway to electronics! Cheers!
One quick note... I saw you said card making. There is one instance where you can get away with not using a resistor with LEDs and that is if you're using a small coin cell. For whatever mystical magical reason, you can connect an LED directly to a coin cell without a resistor. I think it has to do with most coin cells being 3 volts (just about right to light an LED) and some internal resistance in the battery due to it's design. It's possible that explains why you're not seeing them in applications that use that kind of power??
Absolutely. To make things worse... my nooks are usually sealed up tight. I don't keep them on 24/7/365. The good news is LEDs have a really long lifespan-I also tend to run them a little on the dim side to extend that. You bring up an important point. If your project will be on all of the time, building it in a way that it can be repaired is super smart. Desoldering a few LEDs wouldn't be too hard. Ripping things apart to get to them... that may do more harm than good. Great comment. Thanks!
Sorry these things take so long. So many things to do... so little time in the day! I hope it helps with your projects. I've found it really speeds up complex lighting layouts. All the best.
With my scattered brain I still need to remember what flat stands for LOL! Maybe word association... a negative sign is "flat"? Now I'll never forget! Thanks for the tip and the comment. Cheers!
I believe on most 6 mm LEDs the negative side also has a flat shoulder on the body of the LED itself. Helps if you snip the leads shorter and forget which is which.
Thanks for the tip! I'm running outta space in my brain so I'll probably forget and still need to test. Hopefully others will fare better! Thanks again and all the best!
I do have one slight question regarding the voltage. If I have several (maybe 20+) LEDs wired together, each being 3 volts, does this mean I should need a lot more batteries? Like a 60 volt battery pack? Or... maybe I just use the 4 disposable (alkaline) AA batteries to power 20, 30+ LEDs. Pardon my stupid.
There are two-ish broad properties of electricity, voltage and current/amps/amperage). The two work together but one way to look at them is using the analogy of water flowing through a hose. Voltage is the water pressure and amps is the amount of water. To make things work, you need to deliver the right amount of pressure and the right volume. Too much pressure (volts) or too much volume (amps) can blow out the component (which I've done all too often). In the case of LEDs, they will usually have a minimum voltage requirement that will vary by the type and even color of the LED. They also have a maximum current rating to prevent them from burning out. To use our analogy, you need to deliver enough water pressure to do the work but not so much volume that you drown the component. This is really an oversimplification but I hope that helps. Here's a deeper dive into the concept - learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/voltage-current-resistance-and-ohms-law/voltage To answer your question, for multiple LEDs, you don't need to multiply the number of LEDs by the voltage. I generally decide what my minimum power requirements will be for the entire project... usually in the 6 to 9 volt range... based on other components I might be using (an Arduino works well with 9 volts for example). Four alkaline batteries will deliver 6 volts if wired in series. That's plenty of power to drive many LEDs for some period of time. There are a bunch of different ways to connect LEDs with resistors. I tend to keep it very simple and connect each LED with it's own resistor. I basically treat every LED as a single LED with positive going through a resistor to the positive power and negative going to the negative or ground on the power source. I use an LED resistor calculator like - ledcalculator.net/ to determine the resistor value based on the voltage of my power source and the type of LED. I usually use a bit higher resistor value so I'm never pushing the limit of the LED. It's important that ALL of the positive LED connections go to the positive power and ALL of the negative go to the ground or negative. If you start wiring positive to negative to positive to negative in a strand, that's called wiring in series and is a whole different thing. The one thing I would encourage you to do is a bit of searching on "wiring LEDs in series and in parallel" to get a better understanding of the differences. I hope that helps a bit. You would think LEDs would be super simple but the "diode" in light emitting diode means they have interesting electrical properties. Cheers!
@@RandomMakingEncounters Wow thank you so much, what an enormous help this is! Water pressure analogy is perfect. Also going to check out and bookmark both those links, in addition to the amazon listings for the LEDs themselves (multi-color 125 pcs for $30? Whew that's an enormous relief, I've seen listings for nano LEDs, 5 for $5).
it has all ways been the lighting that stumps me I just use string lights which doesn't give the effect I want but now I will give lighting another go.
String lights are a great option and can go a really long way. I've seen so many amazing projects that take full advantage of them. I tend to be a bit of an electronics hobbyist as well so working LEDs and microcontrollers into my projects feeds that side of my creativity. It's not for everyone but adding your own LEDs is a great way to dip your toes into electronics. Best of luck with your projects.
If they are battery powered... especially coin cell... the answer is a solid maybe. I know that's not a lot of help. LEDs often require a resistor with the power matched to the number of LEDs. If the LEDs are cut apart to reposition them and reconnected in the same way but different places, it might work. Clear as mud I'm afraid. I wish I could be more help but there are so many variables. All the best!
@@RandomMakingEncounters thanks for your reply! I’m not good at these things so grateful for your reply. My problem is that even though I have 10 meter of fairy lights, the positions of them are not where I want them. I’m thinking of just covering those i don’t want with black tape.
For the lightning project, the two libraries you would need are the Adafruit NeoPixel library and the DFPlayer library. Both should be available through the Arduino IDE. For more details, you can check out the following resources - learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide and wiki.dfrobot.com/DFPlayer_Mini_SKU_DFR0299
The short answer is… it depends. Here’s the deeper dive answer based on my basic knowledge of electricity (I’m an art major so take it with a grain of salt). Broadly speaking, conductors, like copper wire or tape, have some amount of resistance to the flow of current or amperage. The greater the resistance and the higher the amperage, the greater the amount of heat generated. The thinner the conductor, the higher the resistance. To better answer your question, we need to understand two things: 1. What is the amperage capacity of the tape 2. How many amps is the circuit drawing. The first answer is a little bit of a guess because most copper tape doesn’t have an amperage rating but we can do a bit of research to make an educated guess. From a bit of searching, folks calculate that 1/2” copper tape is somewhere in the range of 20 AWG wire. Wire of this size has an amperage rating of around 10 amps. I’ve seen estimates as low as 5 amps but 10 seems conservative. Another good reference is the amperage rating of copper traces in circuit boards. Depending on the thickness of the trace (they’re pretty thin), a 1/4” copper trace has an amperage rating between 7 amps and 20 amps. With both of these references, it would seem that 1/4” copper tape should be able to handle 5 amps give or take a bit. The wider the tape, the higher the amount of current… narrower… less. The second question is a bit easier to answer. If you go to a site like ledcalc.com and plug in all of your variables, the calculator will give you a total current consumption of the circuit. When I put in a 6 volt power source and 20 LEDs with some basic voltage drop and LED current, I get a result of 195 mA with a mA being 1/1000 of an amp. Obviously, your mileage would vary and some high power LEDs can draw a LOT of current. However, if we’re talking standard 3 mm or 5 mm LEDs, they don’t seem to draw that much current and are well below 5 amps. In fact, the wall transformers I use regularly are 5 volt and only rated to 2 amps which is generally more than enough for most of the applications I use them for. All of these things depend on creating a good circuit where there are no shorts… shorts allow as much current as the power source can deliver to flow… so… not good. When in doubt, I’ll also use a multimeter to check how much current the circuit is really drawing. Calculators are good but a multimeter helps you understand what’s really going on. When I put a multimeter on my Mandalorian nook, it showed that it was drawing around .5 amps. I probably had close to 30 LEDs in that nook. The calculator said 400 mA so… kinda close :). I know that was a pretty lengthy reply. I am always very cautious when wiring things up and, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not an electrical engineer. I tend to err on the conservative side of things and have done a bit of research on just how much copper tape can handle. I think the mantra is low voltage, low current. I hope this helped provide you with some info to better understand the things to consider when hooking up LEDs. All of this also applies to using wire as well but it’s a little easier because wires tend to have established amperage ratings. Here are some links to the references. www.pcbcart.com/article/content/copper-trace-and-capacity-relationship.html electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/452148/ampacity-of-conductive-tape
@@RandomMakingEncounters thank you SO MUCH for your reply, and the time and research you put into it!!! Puts me on track to do a bit of research… Much appreciated!
@@RandomMakingEncounters Thanks for information! :) I'm quite far from electricity, so, I'd like to ask whether they are safe with mini leds like 6-7 piece of 1206, 0805 (or a bit bigger etc.) smd leds with 12V power source? :)))
@@arnokalayc2054 I'm not sure I completely understand the question. Unfortunately, I'm not an electrician or electrical engineer. I can't make a recommendation around the safety of any particular application-there are too many variables. When determining the safety of any given circuit, you will need to determine the overall amperage the circuit will draw and then figure out the capacity of the conductors and components you're using. If the conductor isn't rated to handle the current flowing through it, the result is heat due to the resistance. Too much heat and you can end up with a short when the conductor melts or a fire when it reaches the combustion point of materials surrounding it. It's always best to consult with a knowledgeable electrician or electrical engineer when in doubt.
@@RandomMakingEncounters I'm without even a clue about electricity. So, I understand how the question looks... :) Thank you very much for your kind response and time!
Thanks for that tip! The sad part is I always forget what the flat side means too! I think the little gray cells may be suffering from too many miles! Cheers!
Thank you. This is the easiest and simplified tutorial I have found. You are a great teacher!!! I feel confident now in illuminating my displays for Halloween and Christmas.
Fantastic! We're Halloween fanatics along with everything else and it's just around the corner! Where does the time go! All the best with your projects.
Your videos are always so clear! I'd love you to do a tutorial on using arduino in a dio, as most vids on the topic are way too complicated. Much thanks!
Sure! What kinds of things are you looking to do with Arduino in your dioramas?
@@RandomMakingEncounters I'd love to do a cyberpunk dio with lights that change color, go on and off, maybe even go from steady to flashing. Lots of simultaneous light effects. I know arduino is the way, but its been very hard to get my arms around. Thank you for your consideration!
This was a very easy to follow comprehensive tutorial, thank you.
Glad it helped! Cheers!
Omg, i was looking for this information in UA-cam, but it didn't help me and now i find your video - it's amazing and so helpful! Thanks 🙏
Happy to help! This is my new favorite way of hooking up LEDs. Definitely not for high voltage, high amp applications but handy for nooks and dioramas! All the best!
Thank you so much! I love making nooks but have always been afraid of wiring and soldering, and so usually just go with fairy lights or LED tea lights and such. Your video and step by step guide for using copper tape makes it seem easier (or at least less frightening) than I thought. I might actually try to "wire" my next nook (Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" inspired)! Thank you for videos and happy making!!! 😃
Awesome!!! Labyrinth is a great inspiration. I think Brian Frouds art is absolutely the best in the genre. Never underestimate the power of fairy lights but a little basic LED wiring is well within everyone’s skill set. Good luck on your project!
Thank you so much for doing this comprehensive video. There are few video's available which fully explain how to actually add electrics safely but now I feel I could actually try it myself! Thanks again :)
Glad it was helpful. For the most part, LEDs are pretty straightforward. Soldering takes a tiny bit of practice but it's actually a good skill to learn. If you keep your voltages low, work with batteries, and watch out for shorts, it's pretty doable. All the best with your projects!
That was great. There was so much that I didn’t understand…..yet.
Electronics are often a mystery to me too! I continue to learn new things. LED lighting is a great intro to things like LEDs and resistors. All the best on your journey!
Great learning video! I have been into electronics for over 50 years! Your video is very accurate and the step by step process is easy to understand. Bravo! Thanks for sharing. Happy days and model on! 😎🇨🇦
Thank you! That means a lot! I know the idea of electronics can be daunting. I want to make it as approachable as possible. Cheers!!
Very good and detailed instructions for complete novices like myself. Thanks!
You’re very welcome. I hope it makes adding a little lighting to your projects a bit easier. All the best and happy new year!
@@RandomMakingEncounters you as well! I still have to work up the courage to try it, lol. Where do you get your supplies?
@@valhalloran I get a lot of things through Amazon. However, the copper tape is used in stained glass and any hobby or craft store that has basic stained glass supplies will also have copper tape. The soldering irons for stained glass are probably a bit on the heavy duty side for soldering LEDs so I would look for something geared towards electronics. There are some good starter sets on Amazon as well. I have a few links to supplies in the description.
@@RandomMakingEncounters thank you for your prompt reply! Happy New Year!
Ive been looking into using copper tape and LED’s for adding lights into my card making. After watching this informative video i want to use it for my booknooks too. Can i ask why you have used a resistor for each LED ? Ive not seen them used before in any of the other circuit videos ive seen
You bet! LEDs are quirky little components. If you deliver too much current to them, they can be damaged/destroyed (usually destroyed in the blink of an eye). Let's dive in!
There are two ways to connect multiple LEDs in a circuit. You can connect them in series where the positive of one LED is connected to the negative of the next and the positive of that LED is connected to the negative of the next... and so on. The second way is to connect all of the positive LED legs to the main positive and all of the negative to the main negative/ground. I generally connect my LEDs to my circuits in parallel because they're usually spread out around the nook and I often mix and match different kinds of LEDs in the project (colors, flickering, etc.). Calculating resistor values is much easier and I can use lower voltage power sources... but why?
There are two things we need to know about an LED when designing the circuit - the voltage drop and the current rating. I'm not an electrical engineer so I'm going to give you my really broad, art-major explanation of both of these. Voltage drop is the amount of voltage needed for each LED to light - usually 1.5 - 3.5 volts. Current rating is how much current the LED needs to light up properly - 20mA is a good ballpark number. Exceeding the current rating can cause the LED to go up in a little pop/puff of smoke (been there, done that). Here's the tool I use to calculate things that also describes some of this - ledcalculator.net/
Knowing all of these things, when we go to build our circuit, we need to deliver enough voltage to light the LEDs and limit the amount of current to just enough to work but not too much to fry.
When wiring in series, each LED sucks up (drops) a bit of voltage starving it from the next in the series. If each LED needs two volts and you have three LEDs, you would need 6 volts going in. If you provide 6 steady volts, the calculator says you only need a 1ohm resistor... which is almost nothing. Keep in mind that 4 AA alkaline batteries will initially deliver more than 6 volts so your power source plays a big role and you need to design for a bit of wiggle room and err on protecting the LEDs in an over-voltage/over-current situation.
When wiring in parallel, each LED gets the full voltage from the power source. If we keep our source as 6 volts, each LED would need a 200 ohm resistor to reduce the current to the correct level. However... I could also reduce my power supply to 3 volts and lower the resistor to 51 ohms. Even better, I could keep adding LEDs in parallel without needing to bump up the voltage since each LED is basically connected directly to the battery without being influenced by other LEDs in the circuit. One resistor per LED is incredibly easy to understand at the cost of more connections and more resistors. It's not elegant... but it's simple... kinda like me.
It's possible to use lower voltages and wire in series but you will reach a point where you need to start to break up your series LEDs into chunks when the voltage drop across the LEDs exceeds the circuit voltage. You then end up with a mix of series and parallel in your design.
I hope that all sorta kinda makes sense. Since I mix and match LEDs in my projects, each LED will have different voltage and current requirements. I'm a keep it simple kinda person and don't want to math too much. It's very easy to plug each LED into the calculator and come up with a resistor value for each in the circuit. One thing to note... you don't have to be spot on with the resistor values as long as it's a bit above the calculated value. There's a fair bit of slop and too big a resistor means the LED will be dim or not light at all where too small means a puff of smoke.
I think it's a fair statement to say that LEDs should always have some form of current limiting resistor... even a really small one. Here's a great deep-dive resource for almost everything you would ever want to know about LEDs - learn.adafruit.com/all-about-leds/
I hope this is helpful. The approach I take is really just trying to keep it simple and understandable to me. I could certainly run LEDs in series and end up with a simpler circuit and fewer resistors but resistors are cheap and a simpler circuit only means less wiring... not simpler to understand... at least for me :)
All the best with your projects. LEDs really make everything better and can add so much to a diorama/nook. It's well worth figuring out an approach that works for you. I've burned up a fair number or LEDs but they're relatively inexpensive compared to the microcontrollers I've fried! LEDs are the perfect gateway to electronics!
Cheers!
One quick note... I saw you said card making. There is one instance where you can get away with not using a resistor with LEDs and that is if you're using a small coin cell. For whatever mystical magical reason, you can connect an LED directly to a coin cell without a resistor. I think it has to do with most coin cells being 3 volts (just about right to light an LED) and some internal resistance in the battery due to it's design. It's possible that explains why you're not seeing them in applications that use that kind of power??
Awsome video, I have a question tho. When it comes to LEDs dying out, isn't it too big of a work replacing them?
Absolutely. To make things worse... my nooks are usually sealed up tight. I don't keep them on 24/7/365. The good news is LEDs have a really long lifespan-I also tend to run them a little on the dim side to extend that. You bring up an important point. If your project will be on all of the time, building it in a way that it can be repaired is super smart. Desoldering a few LEDs wouldn't be too hard. Ripping things apart to get to them... that may do more harm than good. Great comment. Thanks!
I have been looking forward to this video. Thanks for making it easy to follow along . I cant wait to give it a try .
Sorry these things take so long. So many things to do... so little time in the day! I hope it helps with your projects. I've found it really speeds up complex lighting layouts. All the best.
the led body also has a flat spot on the bottom to indicate the cathode (neg)
With my scattered brain I still need to remember what flat stands for LOL! Maybe word association... a negative sign is "flat"? Now I'll never forget! Thanks for the tip and the comment. Cheers!
I believe on most 6 mm LEDs the negative side also has a flat shoulder on the body of the LED itself. Helps if you snip the leads shorter and forget which is which.
Thanks for the tip! I'm running outta space in my brain so I'll probably forget and still need to test. Hopefully others will fare better! Thanks again and all the best!
I do have one slight question regarding the voltage. If I have several (maybe 20+) LEDs wired together, each being 3 volts, does this mean I should need a lot more batteries? Like a 60 volt battery pack? Or... maybe I just use the 4 disposable (alkaline) AA batteries to power 20, 30+ LEDs. Pardon my stupid.
There are two-ish broad properties of electricity, voltage and current/amps/amperage). The two work together but one way to look at them is using the analogy of water flowing through a hose. Voltage is the water pressure and amps is the amount of water. To make things work, you need to deliver the right amount of pressure and the right volume. Too much pressure (volts) or too much volume (amps) can blow out the component (which I've done all too often). In the case of LEDs, they will usually have a minimum voltage requirement that will vary by the type and even color of the LED. They also have a maximum current rating to prevent them from burning out. To use our analogy, you need to deliver enough water pressure to do the work but not so much volume that you drown the component. This is really an oversimplification but I hope that helps. Here's a deeper dive into the concept - learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/voltage-current-resistance-and-ohms-law/voltage
To answer your question, for multiple LEDs, you don't need to multiply the number of LEDs by the voltage. I generally decide what my minimum power requirements will be for the entire project... usually in the 6 to 9 volt range... based on other components I might be using (an Arduino works well with 9 volts for example). Four alkaline batteries will deliver 6 volts if wired in series. That's plenty of power to drive many LEDs for some period of time. There are a bunch of different ways to connect LEDs with resistors. I tend to keep it very simple and connect each LED with it's own resistor. I basically treat every LED as a single LED with positive going through a resistor to the positive power and negative going to the negative or ground on the power source. I use an LED resistor calculator like - ledcalculator.net/ to determine the resistor value based on the voltage of my power source and the type of LED. I usually use a bit higher resistor value so I'm never pushing the limit of the LED. It's important that ALL of the positive LED connections go to the positive power and ALL of the negative go to the ground or negative. If you start wiring positive to negative to positive to negative in a strand, that's called wiring in series and is a whole different thing.
The one thing I would encourage you to do is a bit of searching on "wiring LEDs in series and in parallel" to get a better understanding of the differences.
I hope that helps a bit. You would think LEDs would be super simple but the "diode" in light emitting diode means they have interesting electrical properties.
Cheers!
@@RandomMakingEncounters
Wow thank you so much, what an enormous help this is! Water pressure analogy is perfect. Also going to check out and bookmark both those links, in addition to the amazon listings for the LEDs themselves (multi-color 125 pcs for $30? Whew that's an enormous relief, I've seen listings for nano LEDs, 5 for $5).
it has all ways been the lighting that stumps me I just use string lights which doesn't give the effect I want but now I will give lighting another go.
String lights are a great option and can go a really long way. I've seen so many amazing projects that take full advantage of them. I tend to be a bit of an electronics hobbyist as well so working LEDs and microcontrollers into my projects feeds that side of my creativity. It's not for everyone but adding your own LEDs is a great way to dip your toes into electronics. Best of luck with your projects.
Maybe dumb question, but is it possible to cut fairy lights and connect them via copper tape?
If they are battery powered... especially coin cell... the answer is a solid maybe. I know that's not a lot of help. LEDs often require a resistor with the power matched to the number of LEDs. If the LEDs are cut apart to reposition them and reconnected in the same way but different places, it might work. Clear as mud I'm afraid. I wish I could be more help but there are so many variables. All the best!
@@RandomMakingEncounters thanks for your reply! I’m not good at these things so grateful for your reply. My problem is that even though I have 10 meter of fairy lights, the positions of them are not where I want them. I’m thinking of just covering those i don’t want with black tape.
Arduino project lightning Bolt cloud. Hello, can you please advise me on which links to download the necessary libraries to the arduino?
For the lightning project, the two libraries you would need are the Adafruit NeoPixel library and the DFPlayer library. Both should be available through the Arduino IDE. For more details, you can check out the following resources - learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide and wiki.dfrobot.com/DFPlayer_Mini_SKU_DFR0299
Great video, thank you so much! Question: can you use copper tape in plastic models? Does copper tape heat up? Many thanks!
The short answer is… it depends. Here’s the deeper dive answer based on my basic knowledge of electricity (I’m an art major so take it with a grain of salt). Broadly speaking, conductors, like copper wire or tape, have some amount of resistance to the flow of current or amperage. The greater the resistance and the higher the amperage, the greater the amount of heat generated. The thinner the conductor, the higher the resistance. To better answer your question, we need to understand two things: 1. What is the amperage capacity of the tape 2. How many amps is the circuit drawing.
The first answer is a little bit of a guess because most copper tape doesn’t have an amperage rating but we can do a bit of research to make an educated guess. From a bit of searching, folks calculate that 1/2” copper tape is somewhere in the range of 20 AWG wire. Wire of this size has an amperage rating of around 10 amps. I’ve seen estimates as low as 5 amps but 10 seems conservative. Another good reference is the amperage rating of copper traces in circuit boards. Depending on the thickness of the trace (they’re pretty thin), a 1/4” copper trace has an amperage rating between 7 amps and 20 amps. With both of these references, it would seem that 1/4” copper tape should be able to handle 5 amps give or take a bit. The wider the tape, the higher the amount of current… narrower… less.
The second question is a bit easier to answer. If you go to a site like ledcalc.com and plug in all of your variables, the calculator will give you a total current consumption of the circuit. When I put in a 6 volt power source and 20 LEDs with some basic voltage drop and LED current, I get a result of 195 mA with a mA being 1/1000 of an amp. Obviously, your mileage would vary and some high power LEDs can draw a LOT of current. However, if we’re talking standard 3 mm or 5 mm LEDs, they don’t seem to draw that much current and are well below 5 amps. In fact, the wall transformers I use regularly are 5 volt and only rated to 2 amps which is generally more than enough for most of the applications I use them for.
All of these things depend on creating a good circuit where there are no shorts… shorts allow as much current as the power source can deliver to flow… so… not good. When in doubt, I’ll also use a multimeter to check how much current the circuit is really drawing. Calculators are good but a multimeter helps you understand what’s really going on. When I put a multimeter on my Mandalorian nook, it showed that it was drawing around .5 amps. I probably had close to 30 LEDs in that nook. The calculator said 400 mA so… kinda close :).
I know that was a pretty lengthy reply. I am always very cautious when wiring things up and, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not an electrical engineer. I tend to err on the conservative side of things and have done a bit of research on just how much copper tape can handle. I think the mantra is low voltage, low current. I hope this helped provide you with some info to better understand the things to consider when hooking up LEDs. All of this also applies to using wire as well but it’s a little easier because wires tend to have established amperage ratings.
Here are some links to the references.
www.pcbcart.com/article/content/copper-trace-and-capacity-relationship.html
electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/452148/ampacity-of-conductive-tape
@@RandomMakingEncounters thank you SO MUCH for your reply, and the time and research you put into it!!! Puts me on track to do a bit of research… Much appreciated!
@@RandomMakingEncounters Thanks for information! :) I'm quite far from electricity, so, I'd like to ask whether they are safe with mini leds like 6-7 piece of 1206, 0805 (or a bit bigger etc.) smd leds with 12V power source? :)))
@@arnokalayc2054 I'm not sure I completely understand the question. Unfortunately, I'm not an electrician or electrical engineer. I can't make a recommendation around the safety of any particular application-there are too many variables. When determining the safety of any given circuit, you will need to determine the overall amperage the circuit will draw and then figure out the capacity of the conductors and components you're using. If the conductor isn't rated to handle the current flowing through it, the result is heat due to the resistance. Too much heat and you can end up with a short when the conductor melts or a fire when it reaches the combustion point of materials surrounding it. It's always best to consult with a knowledgeable electrician or electrical engineer when in doubt.
@@RandomMakingEncounters I'm without even a clue about electricity. So, I understand how the question looks... :) Thank you very much for your kind response and time!
You dont need to keep track of the length of the LEDs legs. The negative side has a flat side on the casing itself.
Thanks for that tip! The sad part is I always forget what the flat side means too! I think the little gray cells may be suffering from too many miles! Cheers!
Good info. Thank you 😉
You are very welcome! Thanks for watching and all the best.