12volts into 4.5 volt leds?

[JohnW2]

Ok, i think its best to source a string of leds without flashing options and then match the LED driver exactly.

Indeed - I really do think that's your best option, and when you find them, they will probably come with an appropriate power supply/driver. Many/most of those which have various 'flashing options' also have a non-flashing option, and they usually default to the mode previously selected every time they are switched on - so I don't think that you will necessarily have to automatically 'reject' any that have the option to flash (or fade, or whatever)..

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

If you were asking about an LED then there may be an answer but you are asking about an unknown control device.

As I said LED's are current dependent not voltage so to run on 12 volt you need something to control the current. This could be a simple resistor or a voltage regulator feeding a resistor or a full switch mode device.

Using the latter two likely there will be no difference in light output as you increase voltage until the point where the control chip fails and then it will stop working either because if has blown the control chip so no voltage or blown the chip so sudden increase blowing the diodes as well.

With a plain diode as the current increases to light output goes up to start with then it goes down again and reducing the current will not get light output back to original level once it starts to drop the LED has been damaged. We only used cheap red LED's for the experiment we had heard one could increase the output by pulsing the LED so we uses a 555 timer and some transistor chips for the experiment.

The LED's did start to give out more light but the control where we simply passed too much current did the same. I think rated 30 mA form memory and pushing to 38 mA we got more light but by 40 mA we had damaged then. We tried all sorts including altering the mark/space ratio but it became very apparent there was simply an maximum and however you tried you just could not get any more output.

To get more output use either larger LED or bigger LED that is the only way. But you must remember they are current dependent not voltage so any marked with a voltage normally can't be pushed as there is a current controller built in so all it will do is get it warmer you will get no more light. There are some very cheap versions using a resistor where you may squeeze a little extra but the whole idea of LED's is energy saving so not really a good idea using a resistor most use a chip of some type.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You might ask, why dont i get mains powered ones to begin with but they all have this stupid combination flashing settings

No they don't.