carbon fiber and LED DIYers help me

[datdude305]

carbon

i kno carbon is just lik fiberglass but you hav to have a finished piece instead of just a bunch oh shit your gonna sand down later so

Q=can i lay it and if it dont come out great sand it
lik the wet sand you do on your car paint?

leds


i want to do some led work for the car and for sum displays at the house

Q=what resistors cables relays and such would i need to wire up some stuff in the car

and same Q but in a home power outlet

BTW i kno home power black is live and green is ground i kno the basics but the relays and resistor and transistor still scare me

[datdude305]

i would lik to start this asap thanks guys

[cntrylvr79]

The carbon fibber I can't help you with, but as for the leds the questions you're asking are a little too general. First what are you looking to do in the car and in the home. Second what color leds do you want to use. Let me know and I can help ya out.

[datdude305]

white & blue in the car blue in the home (fish tank)

as far as the wireing i think i can handle that
i just dont know where or wut to buy

i was thinking some leds in the side mirrors lik jhunter (pmed already)

then some blues in the fogs pointed to the reflecter to light it up not bright just noticable

maybe the AC vents

some trunk lights i dont kno i wanna play around with this little buggers

and in the home some moon lights for the fish tank

i need a powercable a switch and ?????(reistor? cap? relay ?)

[datdude305]

white & blue in the car blue in the home (fish tank)

as far as the wireing i think i can handle that
i just dont know where or wut to buy

i was thinking some leds in the side mirrors lik jhunter (pmed already)

then some blues in the fogs pointed to the reflecter to light it up not bright just noticable

maybe the AC vents

some trunk lights i dont kno i wanna play around with this little buggers

and in the home some moon lights for the fish tank

i need a powercable a switch and ?????(reistor? cap? relay ?)

[pinoyesv6]

with the cost of carbon fiber. i suggest you make what you want to make out of whatever and then just wrap the top layer with cf. im assuming you are using cf not because of its strength and its other qualities but because of its asthetics (i looks pretty)

so yea, the big thing with it not looking great, is the cloth itself. if the resin didn't come out great you might pull off sanding the resin as long as you don' sand into the cloth. if the cloth didn't come out great, sand smooth i guess and put on another layer of cf.

you have soem specs for the leds?

[datdude305]

yuh thats what i though just kinda sand to take off orange peel kinda

no specs at all me and led hav never met

[pinoyesv6]

the specs on the led's are really crutial. if you don't know the specs of the led's you might as well give me the money cuz it'll just be all a waste.

for the home, i'd just get one of those ac to dc power adaptors/supplies and work with electricity that way. much safer IMO. you can pick them up are like radio shack or wherever. you might even want to just use a regular ole battery, led's don't use that much current so you odn't have to change it too often.

with that said, voltage is critical too. you can find a few led circuit calculators that can tell you the type of resistor you need and how to build your circuit if needed. all you need to put in is the supply voltage, the voltage the led's use, the amount of current the led's use and how many led's you want to use. if you find a calculator compare its values to others. i remember i used to used one and it owuld build me the circuit and i'd be blowing out led's all day because the calculator was wrong. i just calculate things by hand now.

[Xrs2]

You should use a AC to DC Voltage convertor for the house. And in the car just get some 12v LEDs.

For the house you can use any voltage you want. Say if you get a 6v adapter, get some 6v LEDs and youre money.

If you want to use batteries, just add up the voltages of the batteries together to get the total voltage you should get for the LEDs. So like 2 1.5v batteries will be 3v's. All AA, AAA, AAAA (yes Quad A batteries exist, and yes they are useless) batteries are 1.5, and 9v's are you guessed it 9v.

Just remember the more LEDs you want to run at the same voltage, the more amperage you will need. In the car it will not matter, as your car can put out some serious amps. However the Adapter for in the house could melt down if you put to many LEDs on it. Just look at the LEDs and add up the total amps, and make sure youre adapter is more than that.

You should stick with common voltages if you want to use batteries, that way you dont have to mess with resistors. For 2 AA batteries, you could use any 2.8v-3v LED. And as many as you want, as long as the amperage is lower. Another thing to look out for is the brightness of the LEDs. The more cmd's the brighter. We have a pretty decent assortment of LEDs and power adapters at RadioShack.

If you get confused, or want to use differnt voltages, PM me and I will tell you which resisitors you need. But as long as all the voltages match, youre money in the bank. Some LEDs wont light if they are given a lower voltage then what they are rated at. The longer end/flat surface is the negative in LEDs. Most everything else is bi-directional, so you cant wire it backwards (resistors, switches, ect..).

Brian
You guessed I work at RadioShack.

[ipaintu]

just buy a retro moonlight kit for your tank and save yourself the headache. Its less than 20.00 geesh mans.... Or by a light system with one in it. Im thinking your doing a saltwater setup .. If so just grab a retro man Im telling you. It comes with all the stuff you need. Just run and sticky tape..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v641/mehlinger/Picture019222.jpg

[pinoyesv6]

my suggestion, as convienient as radio shack is, don't get led's there.

blue and white led's are what? 3-6 bucks a piece?

my suggestion is get them from ebay. or one of them led outlets like ledtronics. well, led tronics is expensive too but you get the point. i know on ebay i can get 100 blue led's and 100 white leds for less than 20 bucks shipped to my door. with some sellers on ebay they'll even include the resistors if you want. reduces the guess work.

i also say forget looking for specific voltage of led's. if you want to be serious about led's learn to use various resistors and building various types of series/parallel circuits to power your led's.

that and more imporantly, learn to solder.

[Xrs2]

I didnt say anything about buying them....errrr haha. Nah they are expensive. But they are better than 99.9% of the ones I have seen on ebay.

Depending on how many you need, I could get you an awesome price on some.

Ther best way to start is by not using resistors, why, bc you can get to the same exact ending point elimintaing them. SO why evem waste the time/ effort.

[pinoyesv6]

for a beginner i still say start with some bulk led's. i know when i first started i was burning led's left and right, and even with a radio shack discount, even if you got the price down like to a dollar a piece its still expensive to burn out led's in the learning process.

some of the ebay led's in my car i've had for years with no problems. as long as you wire them up right, don't give them too much power you're good to go.

[colombiano]

sooo can u carbon fiber over anything. like if u wanted the car painted all carbon fiber. or does it have to be cf /fg underneath...

[pinoyesv6]

you don't paint carbon fiber. carbon fiber that people use to wrap comes in a sheet of fabric.

[colombiano]

i know that i just couldnt think of a bettr way of saying i want the whole car carboned.

[datdude305]

ok i was thinking of wraping the interior pieces but i am scared of that i guess i might try it when i save up

and for the fish tank retro with blue led 15 bucks

a led wired up i thought would cost around 5 bucks
i figured work a little its like getting paid 10 bucks for an hour :roll:
so ebay will be visited for the car rethinking the reef though


thanks a lot

[Xrs2]

Depending on what color you want, you can get a couple in a pack for like 99cents for red/green/yellow. It only gets expensive on the really bright ones. And the white/blue bright ones. Which are expensive anywhere ya go.

I am working on a cool LED project right now. I'll post some pictures when done.