# Power 6 volt light with 12 volt battery



## Kevingr (Mar 10, 2006)

I have some 6 volt LED lights that I want to run off of a 12 volt deep cycle battery instead of 4 AA batteries. What do I need to put in the line from the battery to drop the voltage to 6 volts?


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## CIW (Oct 2, 2007)

The simplest thing is to get some 12 vdc LED's. Power invertors would probably cost alot more. 
I use 6, 12, and 28 dc and 120 ac. at work. The 4 element LED's run about $4.10 ea.
I changed my camp trailer over. It sure changed the amount of time that a battery charge lasts.


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## ace admirer (Oct 5, 2005)

can you put two 6 volt led's in series?

or a trip to radioshack for a 6 volt voltage regulator ....7806 should be under $3.00


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## Kevingr (Mar 10, 2006)

I looked up the voltage regulators and found out about Zener Diodes. Looks like those will work. I ordered 10 to play with.

The reason I went with these lights is because they are so cheap and bright. I can pick these up at Wally World for 5 bucks and 3 of them put out enough lumens to light up the inside of my huge family tent. The only problem is that with AA batteries they drain pretty fast. I hooked up 6 volt lantern batteries to them and that works pretty good. Now I'm putting together a Deep cycle battery with a 50 watt solar panel for long term dry tent camping so I want to run these lights off of that.

Thanks for the help!


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## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

Be aware of heat issues with the diodes.


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## PyroDon (Jul 30, 2006)

when I make firing systems I use a resistor the firing systems work on any voltage from 12 to 48 volts . if you over juice an LED the pop like a fire cracker


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

A switching voltage regulator is a lot more efficient than a resistor or a 7800 series regulator, and will have to dissipate a lot less heat. Try one of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130379988252


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## Kevingr (Mar 10, 2006)

Cripes (that's the Minnesotan in me) so many options. I'll try a regulator too. This is an experimental project for me so, I'll play with both.


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## cfabe (Feb 27, 2005)

backwoodsman7 said:


> A switching voltage regulator is a lot more efficient than a resistor or a 7800 series regulator, and will have to dissipate a lot less heat. Try one of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130379988252


This is the best solution of all posted. Resistors, Zener diodes, linear regulators like 7806, those all reduce the voltage by converting the excess to heat. This is wasted energy. Reducing a 12V to 6V in this way, you will lose half your battery capacity as heat. A switching regulator like backwoodsman posted is closer to 90% efficient, so you will get almost double the runtime from your 12V battery.


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