- Joined
- Mar 23, 2012
- Messages
- 1,604
- Reaction score
- 845
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Northern New Joizey
I am cleaning up the wiring on my FZ and I am having trouble figuring out if I need any current limiting on my LED. Attached is a drawing of my directional / pod light wiring. My directionals are Watsens, and are currently wired in with a 10 ohm 1/2w resistor in series with the anode. The resistors came with the Watsens (got them used) and I am trying to see if I need them. Everything works, but a 10 ohm resistor in a 14.4 v circuit will dissipate almost 21 watts, and as you can imagine the 1/2 watt resistor gets HOT. Because it only heats up when the directional is on, there have been no problems to date. I do not have any electrical specs for the Watsens.
So here is a question for the electrical gurus out there. The 10 ohm resistor only consumes 1.44 amps at 14.4 volts, so it is not doing much current limiting. Who is of the opinion that I need to have ANY resistor on the anode?
Bonus question: The oem plugs from Watsen have a regular PN diode forward biased on the cathode of the LED. There may be instances where something like this is needed, but looking ay my schematic I see no need to block any reverse current at the LED. Can anyone think of why they are there?
Thanks
So here is a question for the electrical gurus out there. The 10 ohm resistor only consumes 1.44 amps at 14.4 volts, so it is not doing much current limiting. Who is of the opinion that I need to have ANY resistor on the anode?
Bonus question: The oem plugs from Watsen have a regular PN diode forward biased on the cathode of the LED. There may be instances where something like this is needed, but looking ay my schematic I see no need to block any reverse current at the LED. Can anyone think of why they are there?
Thanks