Making a lamp dimmer - resistor?
Discussion
I don't know if I'm in the right place, but I couldn't see a section for electrics.
It's not for a proper car, but I'm making a toy car with working lights. I have some reversing lamps from a caravan, like this .
They are being connected to the wiring used by an electric wheelchair, which has LED lights. When I wired up one of the Jokon lamps, it was very bright, and I don't want to be blinding anyone with these things - they're just for effect. The LEDs seem to run on the full 24V from the batteries, but are 0.7W according to the back of the housing. The lamp I have is for 12V, and is a P21W.
I can't really get involved with reducing the supply to 12V because the switching is done through a control box which also controls the motors. Can I reduce the brightness by wiring something into the circuit with the bulbs? I'm a bit sketchy on my electronics with stuff like this, but was wondering if I just add enough resistance whether that will achieve what I want. My next thought is that I'll be making that resistor very hot presumably, which might just create a different problem.
Any ideas or thoughts welcome. Cheers.
It's not for a proper car, but I'm making a toy car with working lights. I have some reversing lamps from a caravan, like this .
They are being connected to the wiring used by an electric wheelchair, which has LED lights. When I wired up one of the Jokon lamps, it was very bright, and I don't want to be blinding anyone with these things - they're just for effect. The LEDs seem to run on the full 24V from the batteries, but are 0.7W according to the back of the housing. The lamp I have is for 12V, and is a P21W.
I can't really get involved with reducing the supply to 12V because the switching is done through a control box which also controls the motors. Can I reduce the brightness by wiring something into the circuit with the bulbs? I'm a bit sketchy on my electronics with stuff like this, but was wondering if I just add enough resistance whether that will achieve what I want. My next thought is that I'll be making that resistor very hot presumably, which might just create a different problem.
Any ideas or thoughts welcome. Cheers.
Thanks for the replies. The bulbs I have are designed for 12V. Any idea what sort of resistors I would need to look at if I wanted to go down that route? I'm guessing the tiny ones I have to put in breadboards aren't the thing to use 
Wiring in series is an idea, but the same problem applies to the indicators, which are also far too bright, and they need to be wired up individually. Looking on parts websites, it occurred to me that you can get bulbs designed for 24V. I'm trying to work out if I bought those instead, with the same wattage rating, whether they would be dimmer or exactly the same
I'll have a look at the LED conversion route, thanks. As it's a Toylander (classic Land Rover model), incandescent bulbs would suit the look better, but not if they're belting out a million candle power.
Wiring in series is an idea, but the same problem applies to the indicators, which are also far too bright, and they need to be wired up individually. Looking on parts websites, it occurred to me that you can get bulbs designed for 24V. I'm trying to work out if I bought those instead, with the same wattage rating, whether they would be dimmer or exactly the same
I'll have a look at the LED conversion route, thanks. As it's a Toylander (classic Land Rover model), incandescent bulbs would suit the look better, but not if they're belting out a million candle power.
Edited by Prawo Jazdy on Monday 29th November 12:16
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