Question about mounting LED's

[PCGUY112887]

Ok so me and my friend got the bright idea to mount some LED's on our cars. We plan to buy 200 8000mcd blue LED's from besthongkong, and some nice looking mounts to go with them.

http://www.besthongkong.com/product_info.php?products_id=124

http://www.besthongkong.com/product_info.php?products_id=3

I figure these all screwed into some type of box with a bit of clear hot glue sealing the tops of the LED's in place inside the mounts would work good, however I can't think of what we could use as a box. It needs to be big enough to fit say 25 LED's, and i'd need to be able to wire all of the LED's together inside of it so I can't have a metal box shorting things out. Just needs to be able to seal water and such out, and be able to have 1 main power line comming in.

I was also wondering about the resistor, when I wire them in a parallel i'm assuming I can just use 1 resistor per "LED set" we make as long as the resistor has handle the wattage?

Thx

[demortey]

just get a plastic project box from radioshack or something...they have all different shapes and izes of them. just run a bead of caulking or hotglue or something between the box and the cover before you put it togather, and seal it up quickly...put a bit over the screws...and you should be laughin. as for the LEDS...use a resistor with double the wattage you need, just to play it safe. It would probably work if you used 5 1W resistors per 5-LED bank. you don't want to come even close to teh resistor's rating if you can help it. it will just make certain your components will last longer.

[Flip-Mode]

Where do you want to mount them??

[PCGUY112887]

Just right under the car... sorta like ghetto neons.

A project box should work great!

Did I get this right (estimating about 13.5v from the battery, i'd have to grab a mutli to double check.) (see pic)

Then just use 2 of these?
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062291&cp=&kw=wirewound+resistor&parentPage=search

Thx again.

[Captain Slug]

It's best to use one resistor per LED. And if you want aluminum project boxes http://www.mcmaster.com and http://www.mouser.com are places to look.

[Tyreal]

dude. instead of looking cool. i think it will look pretty err.... dumb with it on. No offence but it just won't look good.

If you do decide to do it. Make multiple boxes with ALOT of LEDS on them

[Jeff Moser]

A lot of work for some thing ilegal in most states. but if you must why not use THESE (http://cool-cases-usa.com/Zen-Cart-v1.2.4/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=60) much cheaper, brighter and a simple 12v dc hookup

[PCGUY112887]

Yes illegal in most states for road use, this is for show only... and no idea why I didn't think of using cold cathods... :p

Well LED's would still be cool for some other things I had in mind, thanks.

[demortey]

dont know if you decided on goin with cathodes...but when you calculate voltage and you're going to have it on while the car is on, make sure you take the voltage while the car is running...the altenator will output a bit higher voltage than the battery (around 14.5ish volts...the battery usually hangs out aroung 12.5-13V

[max_clock]

well, my friend uses a pc cold cathode in his scooter...its cheap and easy to mount.

[Enablingwolf]

I directed one of my RL bros to this site. He now has El Wire on his road bike. Works great too.

http://www.elwirecheap.com/