At 12:19 PM 2/7/2003, Robert Steven Fish wrote: >Couldn't you just throw a resistor into the circuit, like you would to get >the voltage down from 12-14 to the 2-4 volts necessary for an LED lamp?? Sure -- and if you have a known constant load it's the cheapest way. But all you're doing is wasting the difference as heat (suppose you needed ten watts at six volts -- your load would use ten watts, and the resistor would use another ten). A series regulator (I got my names mixed before, a shunt regulator is even worse!) simply acts like a resistor in series, but it changes its effective resistance to keep the output constant under varying loads. So yes -- but it's no win. Ohm's law is hard to hide from. david
-- David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage" '85 GL "Poor Relation" |
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