LED Light Question

yurtle

http://www.ebay.com/itm/360681577736...4.m1423.l2649=

Can this possibly be a single LED at 10 watts, or is it a gang of LEDs?

It has a lens made out of "Toughed glass", and it lasts, "50000 hours above life time" so it's gotta be good, huh? If it even lasts a day above my lifetime, why should I care?

It "allows you see far way".

"Sleek design aluminum heat sync housing...anti-corruption". Shure looks like plastic to me.

Enough nit-picking, are these any good?

BGW

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on Buggies Gone Wild Golf Cart Forum

yurtle

I guess my question is really, can a high powered LED get brighter and dimmer based on voltage? All the itty-bitty LEDs I've played with are either on or off. I'd like a headlight that has "Bright" and "Dim" mode, like I have now. I can't really call them high beams and low beams, as their focal point doesn't change, but two 55 watt halogens in series is a lot less obnoxious to parked carters than two in parallel.

gornoman

Someone on this board just listed this item last week. Can't recall who it was though.

bigstik40

After looking at the E-bay pictures and reading the description a couple of times, it does appear that these contain only one (1) high power (10 W) LED per assembly. As far as getting them to be bright and dim, I guess you would have to buy them and "play" with them to see what can be done. You are probably correct when you say they may be either on or off, with no in between. These do look interesting though! Let us know how they work if you "pull the trigger" on em. - RAY

yurtle

I got the site from a recent post, and was hoping the poster bought them.

The way I read the post, there's two lights, so they're pretty cheap. I'm retired now and on a fixed income, but I hate driving at night without lights. I was Freecycling some hoarded "junk", when an anxious hoarder's kid jumped in my buggy and punched it.

Shame on me for not leaving the key in "off". Now I need headlights.

JohnnieB

Being semiconductor devices, LEDs operate on amps rather than volts, so light output can be varied by varying the resistance in series, as well as varying the voltage applied to the series chain, or by varying the duty cycle of the applied voltage.

You asked earlier about it having one LED. It might be in one package, but to get white light, you have to have more than one PN junction since white light is the combination of Red, Green and Blue light and the color of light emitted is determined by the energy band gap of the PN junction and is monochromatic.

eflyguy

Answer is there are ways to dim an LED by controlling current, but the cheapest way using cheap, existing technology, is to pick up a *brushed* motor ESC (electronic speed control) and a "servo tester". Both can be picked up for a few dollars on EBay.

Most RC servos use a PWM signal from 0.5-1.5ms @ ~50Hz to move from one extreme to the other. This is how the throttle on a regular engine is opened and closed. When electric motors started to become feasible, a way to control them proportional to throttle was needed. An ESC converts the 0.5-1.5ms PWM signal into a much higher frequency PWM signal (typically several kHz or higher) - which means it will allow you to control the duty cycle - the amount of "on" vs. "off" time - that the motor is receiving power.

You can control brightness of many simple loads by connecting a servo tester to an ESC, the load (in this case lights) in place of the motor, and powering from a suitable source.

Note most RC motors are now "brushless", and the ESCs are very different. You can not use a brushless motor ESC as I explained above, as it does not simply control the load with simple PWM. There are strill plenty of brushed ESC's out there, however.
..a

yurtle

Got'em in my hoarded clutter. Thanks!

mike777

it was me that posted them, they are well made solid lights, I really like them and would buy them again in a heartbeat, as far as hi-lo beam, good luck figuring that out, I use these in addition to my cut in light kit, kind of like hi beams, they are super bright but not too much, I think perfect for the cart, they look like HIDs, you will not regret the purchase

yurtle

Thanx.