Do I need more milliamps?

[pedalinbob]

my lighthouse project is coming along well.

i have a luxeon 5w cyan, being controlled by a "flasher" which i have tuned to flash once every 15 seconds (it originally had a little incan bulb). it looks great--it flashes on, and slowly dims down over about 5 seconds. total time from on-to-on is 15 seconds, just like the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse. the light is even the same color green.

i am going to use 2 blue and 2 red 5mm LED's to illuminate the lighthouse. they will be about 10 feet away. i will have a switch so i can easily choose between blue or red illumination.

ok, here is the question: i am using a 6vdc 100ma plug, which will be on a timer in my garage. it seems to run the flasher perfectly. doesnt get hot at all.

i would like to branch off a parallel circuit to run the small LEDs. i have them set up to draw ~30ma each, and will only run 2 at one time.

soooo...can i do this? im not sure of the draw of the flasher, but the 5mm LED's alone will draw ~60ma. i havent even tried this for fear of damaging something.

should i simply get another dc adapter, and run a completely separate circuit for the 5mm LED's?

thanks in advance,
Bob

 

[Zelandeth]

Your best bet probably, given how cheap they are, would just be to go out and grab another AC-DC adaptor, the cheap ones are usually rated up to 500-700mA, so would be able to handle the lot without breaking a sweat.

Chances are, that you'd get away with it here, as the flasher is an intermittent load - but getting a more powerful supply would give you a lot more headroom - and power to add anything else at a later date.