sparklepuppies Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 Okay, so I posted elsewhere that my son is building an amusement park model. They want street lights in their model. I have a few packs of the battery operated light strands, but I would love for everything to be hard wired in and hooked to the power strip and transformer. Can this be done? The strands I have, one uses 2 AA batteries, the other 2 C. Both kinds of batteries are 1.5V. So 2 is 3V, guess that's not compatible with 12V? Is there something else I could do/try? I don't really want to pay $25 for the 12V strands available to buy. I have already put way too much $$$ into this project... I guess an alternative is trying to find some GOW bulbs and wire those up... Hmmm... Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocGreen Posted May 9, 2013 Share Posted May 9, 2013 You could try a linear voltage regulator. This acts basically as a voltage divider and automatically changes resistance to maintain a constant voltage output. While the circuit itself is fairly complicated they are commonplace and inexpensive. Radio Shack has one for $2.29 last I checked which will accept an input of up to 40 volts and an output of 1.2V to 37V which is determined by a pair of resistors attached to the regulator. (Part number LM317T). Hope this helps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparklepuppies Posted May 9, 2013 Author Share Posted May 9, 2013 Ooh, thanks! That sounds like a fun lesson to teach the kids! I also dug around in my stuff, and I have some single bulbs on wires, although not enough. And I also found some cool bead caps to use for the lamps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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