i put in a hurst roll contol (line lock) system. they supply a 195 standard bulb with holder. when i went to install the supplied light and the wire fell off. my dad got me an LED from his work. i installed the LED and the bulb keeps blowing. i wired everything the way the directions told me to. i cant understand why the bulb keeps blowing out. i know that LED's are directional and it is setup right. everything else is working fine. as suggestion/ideas would be very helpful.

 

Led's have low resistance compared to regular bulbs. This causes a high current draw. You might want to try wiring up a resistor(3-10ohms) in seris.

 

diodes have a very low resistance when wired correctly. You could either buy a heavier duty diode or wire a resistor in series.

 

thanks for the suggestions. my dad is going to see if he can get me a resistor from his work. so i'll try that this week and see what happens. if that doesn't work where can i get a heavier duty LED from and how much do they cost.thanks again

 

first of all LED's only take 1.8v DC and you are hooking it up to 12v DC. Go to radio shack and get a 270 ohm resistor.

 

EDIT: oops double post

 

the led's im holding right now are 5V

 

As stated before LEDS are about 1.8v, but what you MAY have is one with an integrated reesitor for 5v. However to run it of 12v you'll need a resistor to go in series with the one you have already in the led. You probably need something about the 350ohm mark. without knowing exactly what you have, it can only ever be a guess.

The working for all of this is :
Required current for a typical led is 20mA
They require about 1.8v.

So from 12V you would normally need (12v-1.8v)/0.02A = 510ohms
So from 5V you would normally need (5v-1.8v)/0.02A = 160ohms

So if it's set up for direct connection to 5v then you already have 160ohms, and just need the extra 350ohms to get it right for 12v.

Most leds will cope with a bit more/less current than their spec says so as you won't be able to get exactly a 350ohm resistor, anything between 270 and 380 should be fine.

Si.

 

my dad says that the LED that he got me can handle a 14v system. he uses them on big deasil generators. they use them for warning and indicator lights when the engine is running. thanks for all the help.

 

i just want to say thanks to all of you. i went to radio shack and got a 330 ohm resister and put that in. now the LED works fine. no problems. thanks again.