RC Tanks Australia Forum

well, god forbid we have a woman supported by an old man running the country. Then the message would be "america is weak again". Really tough choice this election, neither candidate is a clear choice... but got to choose someone. At least trump doesn't sit in others pockets - he can afford to pay for his campaign himself, and he's supposedly a good businessman, so one can hope he'd improve the economy. Well... we'll see.

_________________

HL M41 Bulldog
Torro Late Tiger I
Taigen KV-1

Wish List:
Torro KingTiger
Panther F or G
Taigen T34-85
Super Pershing

I took a long look to the led wiring links you posted, and I learnt a lot of new things, but still can make my leds work, lol.

In my Sherman I have the front headlights, two 3mms leds in warm white. Voltage is 3.0-3.2
And two red SMD leds in the rear. Unknown voltage, sorry. They look like the ones in the RC5HL

I was using the lights in the stock tamiya electronics but I replaced the leds it had (Originally it had one big led (5mms or so) for the front lights, and another big led for the rear ones, and the light from the leds worked through optic fibre) I disliked that and replaced the front big led for the two small ones, and the rear one with the SMD red ones and worked. I installed no resistor.

Now with the ASP I cant make them work. If I plug all 4 leds, only the rear ones work. If I unplug the rear ones, the front ones works.

As I said Im using no resistor, but I have been driving my sherman for hours with the front leds ON and had no problem.

How do you recommend me to wire them? If possible Id preffer to have all 4 connected to the same port, but if not I could connect to another one. (The aux is already in use)

Im a bit afraid of blowing the rear SMDs, because replacing them would be a real pain. For the front ones it wont be a problem.


EDIT: Jesus Christ, how horrible my drawing is. Im going to update a nice spanish picture too to try to compensate my horrible painting skills.

Well, Kevin may have a better idea, but just to add my 2 cents, in that circuit, your voltage is constant but you're stacking up amperage draw. So perhaps the headlight 5V+ pin on asp can't supply enough current for all 4 leds.
Try connecting 2 of the leds to some other 5v like auxiliary light or mg1 or mg2 or recoil port 5v+, and keep the ground signal wire as a test still connected together to all 4 leds, and touch it to any ground source on the asp board. See if that lights up all 4. Just curious. Also try using slightly thicker wires for the test.

_________________

HL M41 Bulldog
Torro Late Tiger I
Taigen KV-1

Wish List:
Torro KingTiger
Panther F or G
Taigen T34-85
Super Pershing

Guys I have already told you why this does not work and given you a great reference page



Rad your circuit shows your LEDS in parallel - this means that the current will most likely only flow thru the LED with the least resistance. All other LEDS will be OFF.

You should wire them such that the LEDs are in series. All of the wiring I've seen from HL have the LEDs in series so....

I'm sure you guys think I'm too cranky but how can I not be...

"Now with the ASP I cant make them work. If I plug all 4 leds, only the rear ones work. If I unplug the rear ones, the front ones works."

This make it out that the fault is with Asp when it is poor wiring that is the issue NOT Asp. The 5V+ supply on Asp2 is 4 Amps. I have made a big deal of this as it is more than ANY OTHER controller. A Led requires 20 milliamps (0.02 amps) of current. So you can light up to 200 LEDs with 4 amps of current.

Another VERY VERY important thing here is that with LEDS it is NOT voltage that is critical it is CURRENT. Some LEDs have built in resistors and if they do then they will require specific voltages but most LEDs do not have these.

If you are running a LED direct without any external resistor then the resistor is internal. So if you have a 3V LED, assuming 20 milliamps then that LED has a resistor of R=V/I, = 3/0.02 = 150 ohms. Again, most LEDs do not have such resistors and can be used with any voltage.

If you are at all concerned about blowing a LED add a resistor 220 to 330 ohms.

HOWEVER, THERE IS ALREADY SUCH A RESISTOR ON ASP. Asp is limiting the current ALREADY on all LED outputs.

"As I said Im using no resistor, but I have been driving my sherman for hours with the front leds ON and had no problem." No you ARE using a resistor and if there was not one on the Asp board you would have no working LEDs

Rad you need to rewire your circuit such that the LEDs are in SERIES. I suspect that the Headlights are actually in series (this is how they would be factory wired) and your Rear lights are also in series. But you have wired your headlight combo in parallel with the rear light combo. So the current only flows thru the side with least resistance that being the rear leds.

Cheers
KG

PS ... For clarity to be ultra safe DO NOT repeat DO NOT take supply for LEDs from anywhere else other than the LED connectors. In particular the ground return. The ground return V- or V0 is protected with the resistors on all LED connectors

_________________

rctanksaustralia.com

That makes sense. I didn't read your earlier posts on this much because I didn't have this issue.

_________________

HL M41 Bulldog
Torro Late Tiger I
Taigen KV-1

Wish List:
Torro KingTiger
Panther F or G
Taigen T34-85
Super Pershing

Guys I have already told you why this does not work and given you a great reference page
Yep, I have read several times that link, and as I said I learnt something new from it and the gifs are great, but due to Im not using any resistor (well, as you said my leds might have some built in resistors, but I have not installed any) I thought my problem was a different one.

This make it out that the fault is with Asp when it is poor wiring that is the issue NOT Asp.
Of course im not saying that is an ASP problem. If anybody understood that, I must say it is not a boards problem. My poor electronics knowledge and dramatic soldering, is. Lol

Rad you need to rewire your circuit such that the LEDs are in SERIES. I suspect that the Headlights are actually in series (this is how they would be factory wired) and your Rear lights are also in series.
Yes, that is how I wired them.

But you have wired your headlight combo in parallel with the rear light combo. So the current only flows thru the side with least resistance that being the rear leds.
I think you found the problem. Im going to try to find how should I modify it and see what happens.

Here are some photos of the provisional wiring I did. (The wiring that does not work) just in case.

Well, after experimenting for a while, I dont know how to wire the leds. Could somebody here make a quick draw for me? If my two pairs of leds are wired in series until the connectors, I dont know how should I wire them to the eight pin connector.

The small connector next to the eight pin is the machine gun (and works ok).

Similar as in this example, just do it for 4 leds instead of 3 and disregard the resistor if that was your plan. AND the 12v batt in this example is where you'd connect the 2 ends to you + and - pins on the hl 8pin connector.
leds-in-series.jpg

_________________

HL M41 Bulldog
Torro Late Tiger I
Taigen KV-1

Wish List:
Torro KingTiger
Panther F or G
Taigen T34-85
Super Pershing