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I spent some time working on my Korber Roundhouse, installing the pre-wired 3mm LED's.  I plan to wire them in series, but I am unsure about what power source to use.  These LED's are rated for 10-15v, with 18 of them in the roundhouse I don't think I need to run them at the max to produce the amount of lighting I am looking for.  I was considering using the 10v terminal on the Z4000 or getting a separate 12v DC power source.  If anyone has any thoughts please let me know.

Thank you,

Darren

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Darren,

LOWERING THE VOLTAGE ON LED'S IS NOT GOING TO LOWER LIGHTING  AFFECT YOU MAY BE LOOKING FROM YOUR LED'S.

IN OTHER WORDS LED'S ARE NOT DESIGNED TO BE DIMMED.  

YOUR LED'S ARE DESIGNED TO WORK ON 12 VOLTS.

THAT'S THE WAY YOU SHOULD BE USING THEM.

YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK IN TO ANOTHER TYPE OF LIGHTING FOR  THE AROUND HOUSE.

ALSO YOU TALK ABOUT WIRING THEM SERIES. I DON'T THINK GOING TO WORK ETHER .

Led's are Polarized.

Please let us know how you make out. 

GOOD LUCK,  JOHN  

Now I'm more confused than before.  Lets just say, for example, I were to run wire from each pre-wired LED (The LED's already have resistors installed on each) to a terminal block, then run wire from the terminal block to a power source, why would this not work?

Or, if I were to run wire throughout the roundhouse, then wire the LED's to the installed wire, thus creating a string, why wouldn't this work either?  Maybe I'm just confused about series vs. parallel.

Darren

Just make sure each LED is wired to a positive wire and a negative wire from your power supply, not red to black from light to light. Red to black is "series". The terminal block is a good idea and so is running a wire through the roundhouse as long as you hook red to red and black to black. That is "parallel". You haven't said whether they are AC or DC. That should determine your power supply.

Series:  wiring them in series would be like a daisy chain, with the positive lead of one led connecting to the negative lead of the next led.  The last led negative lead goes to the negative terminal of the power source as does the positive lead on the last LED on the other end goes to the positive terminal of the power source.  Each LED will drop the same voltage in the daisy chain.  So if each LED drops 2 volts and you have 6 LEDS attached in a daisy chain then it will take about 12 volts to get current to begin to flow and light up the LEDs.   If one LED burns out then all of the LEDS will go off since they are in a chain configuration and the chain will be broken. 

Parallel: If you wire them in parallel then each positive lead of the LED goes to the same positive lead from the power source and each negative lead of the LED goes to the same negative lead from the power source.  Each LED is independent.  In this case you definitely need a current limiting resistor in line with each LED for self preservation.  If one LED goes bad then the others are not affected, assuming you have some regulation in your power source.  It will take less voltage to light the LEDS but more current required from the power source.

If you want to get really fancy, get some mirror finish sheet metal and put it in as the floor of the roundhouse.  Any light that would head to the floor will be reflected back up into the roundhouse cavity thereby making the most use of your original light beams or photons or whatever we are calling them today.

I have a six bay kober round house I put three rows of lights 18 total  i run them at 12 volts makes a nice warm light not a bright white they're connected parallel each row then the three rows are connected in parallel then connected to transformer ac or DC which ever .

          I also went Lowes or if you know a contractor and got some roofing nails that have a plastic cap they use to put on that insulation board or other materials that need a big washer .I took the nail out put the light through the cap it made a nice shade for the lights. The light glowed through the shade but you could paint them if you like .

 

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