Passenger car lighting

What is your output on the converter reading? Should be about  4 or  5  dc

@tstark posted:

What is your output on the converter reading? Should be about  4 or  5  dc

I’ll measure it and report back

A lot of led strips are 12v. What is yours? I never saw an led get "red hot"; they blow pretty fast with too much voltage.

@John H posted:

A lot of led strips are 12v. What is yours? I never saw an led get "red hot"; they blow pretty fast with too much voltage.

These are 12v

You obviously need to adjust the output of the converter, that's the purpose of the blue pot.   Around 9-11 VDC is probably going to give you the lighting level you desire.

FWIW, this is done BEFORE you connect it to the LED strip!

Thanks again John, I won't be able to adjust and test until later today.

Question:  Would the voltage being adjusted above the LED's rated 12v cause both the circuit and LED strip to get so hot?

Truthfully, unless it was WAY above the rated voltage of the LED's, I can't imagine them getting really hot.  Obviously, I'm not there, so I can't know for sure exactly what happened.

I can say, I can put one of these regulators on the bench, set it to 11-12 VDC, and connect it to an LED strip, and I don't get any excessive heat or smoke.

Here's the module set to 12VDC out and the first shot is with 5VDC in, the second is with 20VDC input.  The output remains at 12VDC, and nothing gets hot.

Obviously, the pictures look the same as the only thing that changed was the voltage and current coming into the power module, the output remained constant.

Curious as I have not seen the boost buck board.   What is that for?  I am asking as I have upgraded a lot of cars to LEDs but primarily using the either GRJ or Royz regulators.    Curious as that seems to have a large foot print.   Just trying to always learn something new.

The buck/boost board will output a constant voltage for a wide range of voltages, both below and above the output voltage.  It's primarily good for conventional running where your track voltage can be well below the operating voltages of the LED strips.  If you run command, there is no good reason for using the buck/boost for passenger car lighting.

Thank you as I am running mostly in command.   Just had not seen those and have upgraded quite a few cars and now starting on some Lionel and K Line bi levels which use more lighting and was wondering.

Been using your(JW&A) regulators recently in the Lionel 18” aluminum and that regulator footprint fits without having to modify the interior finishes and can be easily tucked away out of view.

Thanks again

For command operation, which I'm pretty much exclusively dedicated to, a simple buck regulator works fine, the input voltage is always above the required output voltage.  When I designed my regulators, I was specifically targeting command operation, and I went with a constant current design because it's much easier to achieve fine intensity control for the LED's.  It also allows me to use different voltage strips without changing anything, if you run conventional, you can use the 5V strips without changing anything in the regulator.