running 35W through a 3W LED...

[redswr]

is this gonna mess things up? i'm not even sure theres 35W coming from my power source but the stock light housing says 12V 35/36.5W and i wanna drop in one of these super high powered LEDs. I'm not understanding wattage thing... can you still have the normal watts going to it but it just uses what it needs? I'm needing it to shine pretty far and have some flood to it too but i guess thats all in the reflector which i am not planning on changing from stock. (don't wanna tell you guys what its for... sorry lol)

 

[Serial Chiller]

If you put in an LED to a 12V power source without any regulation, you will kill it. You need some kind of a driver, that regulates the current going trough the LED.

 

[qwertyydude]

The housing doesn't determine how much power goes through. That's just what goes through with whatever light bulb was originally installed. You could put in a higher wattage bulb for more power but risk melting things. Put an led in and you're going to need an electronic regulator. A single led can not just directly be connected to a 12v power source as they only need about 3.7 volts and it needs to be pretty precisely regulated to prevent them from overheating.

 

[kramer5150]

You need a DC-DC driver board to drop Vin down from 12V to the Vf of the LED, and regulate the current so it does not over-drive the LED.

You will kill the LED in a heartbeat if you try and direct drive it off a 12V cell. There was one time I mistakenly hooked up a ~5V LED to a 12V source and it EXPLODED with a loud POP!!

12V / 35W.... sounds like you're doing a 12V incan spotlight mod. if so, you should be aware that the parabolic reflector dish on lights like these are designed for incan lamps, with the lamp filament positioned ~.75 inches from the base of the bulb mount. Mounting an LED that far down in the dish will de-focus the beam and you'll get odd beam artifacts.

You will need to mount your LED up on a pedestal, or find some way to position the die surface at/near the position of the incan filament.

 

[redswr]

Thanks for the responses guys, I found some 12V led set ups and the contact I emailed said a 12V 1W would be the best at 300 lumens. I tried putting my Malkof mag with the reflector up into the factory housing and it didn't fit all the way and didn't shine as bright so like Kramer said I'll have to mount it up in there further. Guess I'll buy it and see just didn't wanna pop it right off the bat... It's an AC power source too not DC

 

[DM51]

is this gonna mess things up?