Electronics Help?

[Emperor Chaos]

I'm trying to wire up some lights on my gauntlet and I'm having a bit of trouble. I've got things to work before but I'm still a relative newbie at wiring stuff. I, as of yet, have not been using resistors or anything like that. I 've basically been running the LEDs directly from the battery, which hasn't caused any problems until now. My LEDs are burning out and/or pop/smoke when I try to hook them up to a 9V battery (I'm trying to hook up 11 of them at once. I've also got different types of LEDs with different voltage requirements and trying to run them all off one battery, I can do that, right?)

I barely found out even about resistors and I have no clue on any of this stuff. I also have no grasp whatsoever on the lingo or the scientific aspect of it, nor am I very good at grasping scientific concepts. So, a simplified version of what exactly I'm supposed to do would be helpful.

Also, if it makes a difference, all I've got here is radio shack and a small one at that. I have no immediate access to anything fancier or rarer than that.

 

[batmanvspredator]

If it helps, I bought a kids eletronic led/misc build a crap box at a hobby store and it really helps you out with wiring up small things like that. They make a couple diff kinds for expirements and what not. It will help you out if you can find one. I dont know the name of it though its been a while. you should have a store where teachers can buy stuff for science class to that kind of stuff.

 

[Ei luj]

You can run them all from one battery, if each of the 11 LEDs are connected this way:

Wire one end of the LED to the + of the battery, the other end of the LED (the lead at the flat spot of the LED body) goes to one lead of the resistor and the other lead of the resistor gets wired to the - of the battery.

OK, you definitely need the resistors, and you can use the different types of LEDs.

The way the LED and resistor combination works is the LED only wants its voltage- and no more- from the 9 volt battery, so the resistor is there to carry the remainder.

Without the resistor, the LED has 9v dumped on it; thats too much and it pops.

Now to find the resistor values.... do this for each different type of LEDs that have the various voltage requirements.

Battery voltage less the voltage the LED wants is the voltage left for the resistor to carry.

Take this resistor voltage and divide it by .01 amps (the minimum LED current) this will give you a resistance value.

Take the same resistor voltage and divide it by .02 (the maximum LED current) this gives you another resistance value.

Pick a resistance value between the two found above (Radio Shack has set values) and your LED will light bright enough.

1/4 watt resistors are OK for this application.

Hope this helps

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Ei'luj