Illuminating a model ship

[james.50cal]

Hi. Im building a model ship and i want to light it up with leds. Have 12v leds and an 8x aa battery holder and switches.

i would like to have 3 lights in the hull, one in the interior of the ship, 2 nav lights, 1 mast light and 2 lights on the deck

i want the lights to be controlled by between 3 and 5 switches and all on the same power supply but no idea how to do it.

I know nothing about this sort of thing and thought it would be simple but how wrong was i lol.

any help would be much apreciated as this is driving me insane.

 

[Gryd3]

Hi. Im building a model ship and i want to light it up with leds. Have 12v leds and an 8x aa battery holder and switches.

i would like to have 3 lights in the hull, one in the interior of the ship, 2 nav lights, 1 mast light and 2 lights on the deck

i want the lights to be controlled by between 3 and 5 switches and all on the same power supply but no idea how to do it.

I know nothing about this sort of thing and thought it would be simple but how wrong was i lol.

any help would be much apreciated as this is driving me insane.

With the right understanding, this project become easy

Where did you get the 12V LEDs?
LEDs are typically less than 2V unless extra circuitry is added, you could very well have gotten away with using 4xAAs instead of 8.

Are you familiar with the difference between parallel and series wiring?

 

[james.50cal]

Ive read about parralel and series wiring and attempted a parrallel circuit but only the first of 3 bulbs lit up.

i got the 12v bulbs from my local model shop

 

[james.50cal]

This is what i tried. If the image loads

 

[Gryd3]

K. 'bulbs' usually refer to glass cased incandescent lights. LEDs are a different bread.
Your wiring looks correct. LEDs (unlike bulbs) will not work if hooked up backwards though.
Have you made sure the polarity is correct if they are LEDs?

 

[james.50cal]

Looking at them now i dont think they are leds.
How can i find out the polarity?

 

[Gryd3]

Thank you for the picture, those are not LED and they will not have a correct polarity to worry about.

Parallel circuit would typically be:
Battery+ to SwitchSide1
SwitchSide2 to ALL Light+ (All that you wish to control on a single switch)
ALL Light- to Battery-

Have you built your circuit in the boat already, or have you built a test circuit?
I've seen the drawing, but would like to know how you interpreted the drawing and connected the wiring. (Picture would be great)

 

[james.50cal]

I just did the three lights in the hull but ive taken it appart now. Ill twist the wires back together quickly and upload a pic

 

[james.50cal]

Ive done a drawing on my phone of how i wired it up

 

[james.50cal]

There should have been another wire from the middle bulb to the switch i forgot to draw it

 

[Gryd3]

Based on the ship drawing and the funny little phone sketch you posted, it appears like you understand parallel wiring, and the above circuit should work.
If it does not, we are missing something. It's either a misplaced wire when you hook things up, a dead bulb, or there's a question I'm not asking.

To confirm, you have connected the switch to each light, then connected the unused side of those lights to the battery.

 

[james.50cal]

I could have been my soldering. I connected all 3 bulbs to the switch through one wire not individualy. The other sides are connected to the battery but only one bulb lights up when i close the switch

sorry for the terrible phone drawing lol

 

[james.50cal]

Does it matter what side of the switch i connect the wires to or how i connect the bulbs to the switch as i connected the 3 bulbs in a series then from the points i soldered i connected three wires to a single wire that i then connected to the switchif that makes any sense at all lol

 

[Gryd3]

Does it matter what side of the switch i connect the wires to

No. Your switch is a simple on/off switch. It would matter if your switch had 3 or more contacts.

or how i connect the bulbs to the switch

Kind of... Lets see.

as i connected the 3 bulbs in a series then from the points i soldered i connected three wires to a single wire that i then connected to the switchif that makes any sense at all lol

The term here is what might be whats happening. Series connections won't work here.
This could very well be a miscommunication though.

Lets do this step-by-step.
When you say you've connected the 3 bulbs in series, did the middle bulb still have an unused wire?
If the answer here is no, then you've miswired.

If you have a sharpy, let's try something. Mark one wire on each bulb with the sharpy.
You should now have bulbs with a white wire, and a marked wire.
The marked bulb wires can all be connected together and then connected to the battery.
The white unmarked wires can all be connected together and then connected to the switch.

If at anytime, you have a marked wire connected to an unmarked white wire then that is the problem.

 

[james.50cal]

Ill give that a try and let you know what happens.

 

[james.50cal]

H

 

[Gryd3]

Ill give that a try and let you know what happens.

Looks good, You can use lengths of wire in between to space your lights anywhere you want.
You can use a single wire and 'hop' from each light to the next just so long as the marked wires only connect to other marked wires.

 

[james.50cal]

But how do i go about adding all the other lights on the ship picture? Just the same as the picture? Also those 3 lights got very hot very fast is that normal ?

 

[Gryd3]

https://www.electronicspoint.com/resources/digital-temperature-measurements.40/
How hot is very hot?

Incandescents lights like the ones you have will heat up. It's how they operate. The little wire inside (filament) heats up to give off light.

They look much 'warmer' and will appear more realistic in an older ship.

LED's are a tad trickier to setup, but they run much much cooler and use less energy. The trade off, is that most white LED's give off a 'cooler' light. They don't have that glowey yellowish touch.

Lets recap what you currently have, then I can explain how to add more lights.

A series connection is a connection of in-line items. Electricity MUST pass through any item that is in series.
A parallel connection is a connection of items that are connected parallel to each other. Electricity can go through any and all items connected in parallel. (Like a multi-lane road)

Your switch is connected to the rest of your circuit in series so that all electricity must go through it to get to the lights.
Your bulbs are connected in parallel to each other so electricity can go through them all at the same time.

What you can do now, is make an exact copy of what you have already done... but don't connect a battery yet.
Once built, you should now have two switches, and two sets of lights.
You can simply add this to your existing circuit by connecting the battery to the second switch, and connecting the marked side of all of your bulbs together.

Does this make sense?
This way, when both switches are turned on the electricity will branch off and go to both switches, then branch off and go through each bulb, then join again to go back to the battery.
If you turn off one of the switches, then any bulbs that are connected after it will no longer be lit.

 

[james.50cal]

Cool thanks for all the help i apreciate it alot. One last question. Is there a limit as to how many wires i can connect to a single wire