Over-amp a blinkie?

[MMACH 5]

I'm awaiting my new 18650-headlight to show up. I'm planning to run it from an external battery and would like to have my tail lights pull from the same central power source.

I use three 9-LED blinkies that are designed to run off 2x AAA. Right now, I have them all wired to an external 2x AA battery pack.

Has anyone run 3v blinkies on 3.7v and was the extra .7 volts detrimental to the tail lights?

Thanks.

 

[LukeA]

It's not that they'd be running 0.7V over normal, in reality they'd run 1.4V (4.2V-2.8V) above nominal. That overvoltage will put well over 100mA through the LEDs.

 

[znomit]

Most blinkies under drive the LEDs to give the 30-150 hr runtimes, so you should have some headroom to hot rod them.
If its regulated upping the battery voltage won't help.

Martin looked at some european taillights, going up to 4.2V:
http://www.pilom.com/BicycleElectronics/CommercialBTL/CommercialBTL.htm

 

[MMACH 5]

Thanks for the replies. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to brighten them up. I just want the convenience of a central battery for both front and rear lights.

I've got several similar blinkies laying around that I'm not using, so I think I'll wire up to these and see how they run. If they burn up, then I'll just stick with my current, 2x AA, external battery pack for the tail blinkies.

Thanks again.

 

[Nubo]

I think there's an advantage to keeping separate batteries. That way even if you exhaust the batteries for the headlamp, your taillamps continue, or vice-versa.