LED circuit for Megaman costume need help please!

Thread Starter

Iscaria

Joined Sep 14, 2011
4
So this year I decided to go as Megaman for Halloween. There's no good costumes you can buy, but I found a guy who made one for his kid at http://www.instructables.com/id/Mega-Man-Costume/

I won't be rocking the full costume, just the buster cannon. Unfortunately I haven't held a soldering iron since 8th grade so my calculations for a complete circuit are gonna be way off. I already purchased the parts from Radioshack and I wanted to see if anyone could help me with setting them up or picking out new parts if the ones I got aren't good.

My materials right now include:
25-watt soldering iron
Lead-free .032" 96/4 silver-bearing solder
Four 5mm yellow LED's
Back of the package lists them as follows:
Forward (Supply) Voltage: 3.0 VDC max
Luminous Intensity: 55mcd
Peak emission: 585 typ.
20mA
One Jumbo Super-Bright 10mm Red LED
Back of the package lists it as follows:
Absolute maximum ratings
Forward current: 40mA max
Forward voltage: 5VDC max
Reverse voltage: 6VDC
Power dissipation: 100mW
Electro-optical characteristics
Forward voltage: 2.4V +or- .03V
Peak emission: 660nm
Luminous Intensity: 5000mcd (typ. at 20mA)
A package of 18-gauge hookup wire to connect it all
A couple of 1 watt resistors (half are 100-ohm and half are 1k-ohm)
And my power supply is a 9V Battery

I was thinking a 9V would be too much to power just 5 LEDs, but an LED Circuit calculator I used said it wouldn't be enough. That's why I wanted to come here and get your guy's opinion on the matter. The finished product should look something like this:


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Forget the part numbers. You already gave enough information.
Put 2 yellows in series with 150 ohms.
Repeat that.
Put the big one in series with 165 ohms, at least 1/2 watt.
Connect the three strings to the battery.
 

Thread Starter

Iscaria

Joined Sep 14, 2011
4
Okay that sounds good to me, but I have one question how would you connect multiple series to the same power supply? Sorry I'm kind of a noob =(
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
You just made 3 series strings. Attach the end of one string to the positive of the battery. Attach the other end of that same string to the negative of the battery.
Repeat this 2 more times.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Yay! That was about the smartest noob I've ever seen. Showed up with the right information and got it working in 3 questions.

Hats off to Iscaria!
 

Thread Starter

Iscaria

Joined Sep 14, 2011
4
Lol thanks. Technically I'm not a noob cause I took Electronics in 8th grade and did way more complex stuff than this, but that was almost 10 years ago so I get a handicap lol. Now I just gotta work on building the actual cannon. I'll post pics of the finished product when I'm done.
 
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