LED Lighted Poster Prints

Well, I suppose I could be in the wrong forum for advice but here it goes! I 'm sure you have seen poster prints such as the classic cars at the old fashion drive in? These have led lights installed in the back which makes the car headlights appear to be on and led lights are often installed in the drive in cafe as well. Well, I have several prints and I need advice on what equipment I need to construct these led posters and advice on the building of these led poster prints! Can anyone direct me to the correct source? Thanks!

[Ghost(BOO!)]

you'll need to know more then just what kinds of things you need. Just knowing you need transformers, resistors, led's, switches isn't going to help. You need specs of what resistances, current, etc... you need. try to find specs of the pictures online so you know exactly what you need. You could also buy a small LED picture and look inside it to see how it is set up. It will be a series circuit. it's not too difficult. Do you know how to troubleshoot problems if they occur like what you do to find out if there is an open or short?

[Ghost(BOO!)]

you probably wouldn't want to but an easy way to do that is buy a little string of christmas lights or something like them and put which colors you need on the string of lights. Then you won't have to deal with the circuitry of it.

[sgtspector]

Go to a hobby shop that sells trains and accessories and get the little street light set. It will come with transformer and everything you need although you my ahve to shorten it. Good luck.

[HAL9000]

I think you guys are getting WAY too complex and trying to re-invent the wheel. I have an LED flashlight.. runs forever on some lithum batteries and I'm pretty sure these pictures run on batteries as well.... and well, it has 5 led's in it and can be run on two for a medium brightness, or all five for bright... no fancy circuitry, basic wiring. Just be sure not to run more voltage through the LED than it can handle... or poof.. no rocket surgery there.

Originally Posted by Ghost(BOO!) you'll need to know more then just what kinds of things you need. Just knowing you need transformers, resistors, led's, switches isn't going to help. You need specs of what resistances, current, etc... you need. try to find specs of the pictures online so you know exactly what you need. You could also buy a small LED picture and look inside it to see how it is set up. It will be a series circuit so it's not too difficult. Do you know how to troubleshoot problems if they occur like what you do to find out if there is an open or short?

I do have a led print already so I will take the back off and see how it is set up! Thanks!

[David M]

Hal is correct...this is being made WAY too complicated.

Radio Shack, Fry's and other electronics stores sell LED"S in many different voltages, colors and intensities. Just get the LED's all in the same 12 volts for example and run them from a cheap 12 volt power supply or power it with 8 D-cell batteries. Solder them together with some cheap 20 guage wire. (LED's's draw hardly any current). It's very simple this way. It will NOT be a series circuit because of the voltage drop caused by wiring things in series...wire them in parallel. You can build your own very cheap 12 volt power supply with a 10-1 stepdown transformer (120 volts down to 12 volts) and making your own rectifier out of 4 diodes. I would buy a book on basic elecrtronics because learning how to do this kind of stuff is fun.

[Ghost(BOO!)]

Originally Posted by David M Hal is correct...this is being made WAY too complicated. Radio Shack, Fry's and other electronics stores sell LED"S in many different voltages, colors and intensities. Just get the LED's all in the same 12 volts for example and run them from a cheap 12 volt power supply or power it with 8 D-cell batteries. Solder them together with some cheap 20 guage wire. (LED's's draw hardly any current). It's very simple this way. It will NOT be a series circuit because of the voltage drop caused by wiring things in series...wire them in parallel. You can build your own very cheap 12 volt power supply with a 10-1 stepdown transformer (120 volts down to 12 volts) and making your own rectifier out of 4 diodes. I would buy a book on basic elecrtronics because learning how to do this kind of stuff is fun.

sorry, I meant to put parallel circuit (to answer what david m wrote). Also the way he was talking I drew the conclusion that he wanted to do it the harder way by making his own circuit maybe for fun or practice. The hard way is always the most fun lol. This stuff is a lot of fun to me and I miss my college electronic classes. We did a lot of fun experiments and projects.

Thanks for all your suggestions! I do want the power source to be electric as all my other led poster prints plug in to the wall.

[Ghost(BOO!)]

good luck with your posters