12V LED - Help needed please.

[chasroberts]

Hi all

I purchased a 5mt strip of flexible LED to use in small sections as cockpit lights. These are joined together with soldered flyleads which I can disconnect for demounting the frame of the cockpit tent. First four sections up and running (and very nice it is as well) Just putting the second set in and I think I might have got a wire crossed somewhere and fed 12V+ down the 12V- side and vice verso for about 30 seconds until I disconnected the supply. Simple question really. Are the affected sections now fried beyond any hope and should I just start again from scratch?

Thanks in advance as always.

Chas

 

[lenseman]

Before you buy a new set of LED lights, try connecting the LED's the correct way round and I think you will find the answer to your question?



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[MarcJ]

Don't think they should be affected. I've got some LED strips that I'm playing with, I haven't marked the +ve and -ve so just "try" them until I find which way round they go...

 

[neilf39]

As they are diodes then they should be fine so long as you don't put excessive voltages on which you would not have done if using the 12V supply. Original purpose of a diode was to not conduct when voltage is applied in one polarity as opposed to the other these happen to emit light. Just connect them up the correct way round and they should work.

 

[chasroberts]

Thanks everyone. I will start stripping down tomorrow and try and find where I have screwed up. Hopefully not disastrously. I did try crossing the connections after the first section which lit but then got nothing so posed the question here before I threw more effort at them!

Once again thanks to all for your prompt reponses.

Chas

 

[lw395]

As they are diodes then they should be fine so long as you don't put excessive voltages on which you would not have done if using the 12V supply. Original purpose of a diode was to not conduct when voltage is applied in one polarity as opposed to the other these happen to emit light. Just connect them up the correct way round and they should work.

Unfortunately, LED's are optimised for emitting light, not acting as rectifier diodes.
Their rated reverse voltage is often very low, so you can't guarantee getting away with it.
In practice, there is a good chance of it being OK.