Help with Led lighting in my Enterprise

[Ashb1502]

Hello, I've come across an issue withy LED lights I'm building for my Entperise model.

I'm using a 12v led strip for the nacelles and have used flickering / candle 12v pre wired LEDs for the bussard collectors. All powered off of a 12v 23A battery.

The LEDs light up fine on their own, however when I connected the led strip and the flicker LEDs in parallel, the led strip started flickering too. Now I I was only doing a test so I had just touched and twisted the wires together, but I can't understand why the led strip was flickering when in parallel....it was pretty much in time with the flickering candle LEDs.

 

[Antsnest]

Almost certainly because one of those batteries will have nothing like the capacity needed to run all the LEDs and as the flicker LED changes the current draw as it flickers, this will affect the current available for the strip making that flicker too.

These have a typical capacity of around 55mAh - that's nothing. They are not designed for always-on heavy load circuits like LEDs.

Using 12v components is difficult in the battery world - if you want to stick with batteries you'd be better redesigning to use the LEDs at their native operating voltage (around 3v) and using larger capacity batteries like AAs (an alkaline AA can provide 2400mAh capacity). Alternativey, you may have to go with a 12v mains adapter and live with wires....

 

[modelerdave]

Almost certainly because one of those batteries will have nothing like the capacity needed to run all the LEDs and as the flicker LED changes the current draw as it flickers, this will affect the current available for the strip making that flicker too.

These have a typical capacity of around 55mAh - that's nothing. They are not designed for always-on heavy load circuits like LEDs.

Using 12v components is difficult in the battery world - if you want to stick with batteries you'd be better redesigning to use the LEDs at their native operating voltage (around 3v) and using larger capacity batteries like AAs (an alkaline AA can provide 2400mAh capacity). Alternativey, you may have to go with a 12v mains adapter and live with wires....

Yep, this is right. If you have to stick to batteries you should use different battery packs for different sets of lights. That will allow you to start and stop them separately as well. The downside to that is that you'll need multiple on/off switches.

 

[Ashb1502]

So in the end I came up with this, a 3v lithium ion battery. It's small enough that I could put it in its holder, attach a small micro switch switch to the holder and have it stored in the secondary hull. Using 5v rated led strips, it is plenty bright and maintains it's brightness.

Next up is decal time.