All about 12 volt LED floodlights

LED Spotlight - the next stage in the development of LED luminaires. Starting with pocket and trinket lamps, manufacturers came to home and table lamps, and soon they got to floodlights and high-power light strips.

12 volt LED floodlights do not work on a household network with a voltage of 220 V. Exceptions are cases when 20 identical floodlights of the same power (for example, 10 W) for 12 V or 10 elements for 24 V.

But this option is used only by self-made craftsmen who buy up and find out of order industrial products with an inoperative driver or one "punctured" LED in landfills.

If this option is not for you, pay attention to the products available for sale. 12-volt floodlights have many advantages.

• Relative security voltages up to 12 (or 36) volts. With voltages up to 12 V, you can work even with wet hands and without dielectric gloves, provided that the skin of your fingers is not damaged. In a dry room without electrical protective equipment, it is allowed to work under voltages up to 36 V.
• Ease of assembly, maintainability... A self-made low-voltage assembly and a case for it can be assembled even on flat pieces of wood covered with waterproof varnish.
• No driver and converter board needed. It is enough just to connect the required number of LEDs in series. For 12 volts, these are 4 three-volt white LEDs, for 24 V - 8, for 36 V - respectively 12.
• Can supplement the circuit with a multivibrator - an external dimmer, - creating "running lights", smooth blinking, blinking with a frequency of several to 2-3 tens of hertz (stroboscoping).
• Possibility to connect home floodlights from car battery, for example, when the electricity was turned off in the dark, but the user still needs to continue working. The opposite is also true: car headlights are powered in the garage on the car itself from a 12 V power supply, and a large mirror is placed in front of the car to reflect the light throughout the garage. At the same time, the consumer saves on the purchase of spotlights directly for the garage.
• Possibility create lighting of unlimited power - for example, several 200 W floodlights are connected to a car battery in parallel. Such a light flux is capable of illuminating up to 5 acres, like during the day in cloudy weather.
• A driverless 12-volt floodlight does not flicker on the air. This will be fully appreciated, for example, by shortwave radio amateurs and AM radio listeners. The fact is that there is no powerful impulse interference from a searchlight with a 220 V driver, which "clogs up" the radio air in a radius of up to tens of meters. A transformer (linear) power supply, solar panel or homemade wind turbine are the most suitable solutions for powering a 12-volt floodlight from a 220 V.
• Work of a spotlight or headlight on LEDs in any heat and frost in conditions Lands (except for Antarctica, where frosts in winter range from -45 to -89.2 °).The fact is that the LED, at the suggestion of the manufacturer, due to the savings on light elements and the deliberate overestimation of the current and supply voltage in the converter for some time is able to work at + 70 °, heating up to a given temperature value during operation.
• Profitability... Driverless power supply saves the consumer from power losses for additional conversion of the supply voltage. LEDs and their groups are connected directly to the battery. If, nevertheless, the voltage turns out to be overestimated, for example, 13.8 volts on a fully charged automobile acid (or acid-gel) battery, and the connection of extra LEDs in series groups is accompanied by a sharp drop in luminosity, then ordinary rectifier diodes or ballast resistors are used, limiting working current.

In the first case this is achieved by a voltage drop of a few tenths or whole volts, while the power loss is minimal. In the second - resistors are installed, to exclude overheating of which elements with a margin of several watts are also used.

Semiconductor (rectifier) ​​diodes are preferred: they only lower the voltage, while the supply current is not affected in any way. And in comparison with incandescent lamps (halogen, xenon), energy efficiency reaches a new level: savings with the same luminosity in some cases reaches 15 times.

Flaw for 12 V floodlights - current losses due to low voltage with a significant length of the wire line. If 220 volts can be transmitted for tens of meters along relatively thin wires with a cross section of 0.5 m 2, then for 12 volts this cross section is proportionally increased by a factor of 9 (12 * 9 = 224).

Wiring costs will increase even if relatively thick aluminum is used instead of copper cable. The voltage drop is compensated by placing additional batteries connected in parallel in a common power circuit, soldering thin old wires into one thick cable with reliable insulation of the resulting connection points.

That's why the 12V lighting system becomes much more complicated, which cannot be said about 220-volt floodlights.

Besides cars, 12 volt floodlights are used in boats, trains, airplanes... Any transport in which the use of 220 volts (except for trolleybuses, metro, electric trains, electric buses and trams) is difficult is subject to restrictions.

The ability to illuminate a non-volatile house, greenhouse and other structure is provided by LED floodlights operating from wind turbines, solar panels, mini-hydroelectric power plants installed on a water supply line or in a nearby stream, from tidal generators on the shore of the sea or a large lake, a nearby river, all kinds of linear winding generating coils installed on doors, bicycles.

The use of low-voltage floodlights and lanterns is justified where, due to real or fundamental considerations, centralized power supply is not provided. The searchlight is used as a bicycle light in autonomous hiking.

12V floodlights are classified according to several criteria.

• Warm glow - 2000-5000 kelvin. Cold - more than 6000 K. The first is used in residential and work premises, the second - on the streets, in yards, on sites within the outer protected area.
• Power - 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 and 200 watts. High power is not always advisable, less or intermediate, as well as high, is assembled on the basis of existing purchased products or from individual LEDs independently in the form of an extra-large matrix.
• Applications: marine, automobile, stationary suspended (for example, on the street).All of them are waterproof: they work in conditions of cold and heavy rains. Pool floodlights can withstand immersion in a water reservoir up to several meters and can work there for months without cleaning all kinds of deposits.
• By the color of the glow: monochrome - red, yellow, green and blue. RGB models - red-blue-green - allow you to get any color of the glow. Triple RGB LEDs or quadruple RGBW LEDs (with one white), located with a dimmer or microprocessor controller, allow you to create not just, for example, a purple or turquoise hue, but also make the colors change at different frequencies.
• Light module design: many small LEDs, either one or several large ones.
• Modularity: for example, the spotlights in a football stadium are made in the form of dozens of spaced blocks.
• Housing and suspension design: adjustable and solid.
• Mobility: the hand-held (rechargeable) LED floodlight is transported to the place of work, suspended on a belt. It is an alternative to a headlamp.

A 12V street floodlight is an outwardly indistinguishable design. But, looking more closely, the user will find that dozens of small LEDs have been replaced by one (4-diode) or several large ones. Power - 30-200 watts.

A floodlight for home use does not differ from an outdoor (outdoor) one in anything, except for a power of 10 to 30 watts. Thirty watts is enough to illuminate the kitchen-living room with a square of up to 40 m 2. Such a solution is temporary, or it was created for minimalist people who do not need the beauty of design, an exquisite interior.

You should not purchase products from brands that produce Chinese lighting equipment in Russia under domestic brands. Their light output is 25-30% lower than the declared one. Most of the brands, whose laboratory is located in Russia, and which themselves produce lighting equipment, enjoy great trust among Russians. For example, this Optogan and SvetaLed, not Era or Jazzway.

When purchasing LED spotlights from online stores, be sure to read the reviews of real buyers before placing an order. The disappointment of low quality lasts longer than the joy of low price.

• Do not buy cheap fakes and products from manufacturers who cheat with power and light flux all the time.
• Floodlights for 12V, like any others, consider carefully. "Punched" LEDs are highlighted with black dots in place of the burned-out microcrystal. Ask the seller to test the product. Make sure all LEDs are on the same way.
• Avoid defective products in which the luminance is uneven. It happens that different LEDs from the same batch differ slightly in their light characteristics. The presence of "warm" and "cold" LEDs is not a defect - if only they worked for the stated period.
• If you are not sure of the quality, and there are no products suitable for the brand in your city, or the models are out of production, you should order diodes and breadboards and assemble the floodlight yourself.