I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in this stuff, or have training in it. I work with an electrical engineer in our robotics program here at the school. This is how he told me to set this up. I've been told, and I've read, that the LED's have a short life without setting it up this way. I also seem to remember there was a way that the light will be bright all the time otherwise.Sonreir said:It's not AC voltage on the tail light, is it? I feel like I'm missing something.
What I do know about Zener diodes, and maybe this is why, is they prevent spikes in a current and they provide a very consistent voltage. I know their most common usage is for voltage indicators, or whatever you call it, where coupled with an LED they provide references that read voltage.Sonreir said:I've worked with a few of of the two wire tail lights before and they've only come with resistors. It's entirely possible the diodes are a proper addition if you're going to do it the right way. I was just hoping to find out more about it.
irk miller said:What I do know about Zener diodes, and maybe this is why, is they prevent spikes in a current and they provide a very consistent voltage. I know their most common usage is for voltage indicators, or whatever you call it, where coupled with an LED they provide references that read voltage.
Yes, I mentioned that in my first comment.Pete12 said:You're thinking about plain diodes Irk, a zener diode prevents voltage going in the reverse direction until the zener setpoint is made.
irk miller said:The diodes prevent flow back, so they separate the circuits. Otherwise, it would be brake light all the time.
Pete12 said:You just need IN4004 diodes and a current limiting resistor.