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I am always confused by the viewing angle of the Led's but after looking at pics of lights lit up on Ebay I'm starting to see the light. :lol: However I want to make some street lights and since they are not going to be pointing down where the majority of Led light focuses straight ahead, I was wondering if these Inverted lights would be a better choice. Since the light is directed 360 degrees around the light it could be put at 90 degrees over the track with a shield on top. Kinda like a "C" shaped shield.
Thoughts?
Dave
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-WHITE-5mm-IN ... xyOeBRykpY

2nd question. I'm looking at 12v lights because I have a selection of used lawn tractor batteries sitting around doing nothing. I'm assuming I can use those as a PS?

Looks like you have to use the supplied resistor.
Sealed batteries with wall chargers is what we use to power everything.
Have a few of those type of lights scattered around the track and under my bridges.
We picked them up at Wal-mart in the Christmas light close out section.
Here is a crappy picture of one in action :doh:

If you power those LEDs with a battery you will have to charge the battery from time to time. A 12 volt battery charger actually puts out 13.8 volts. Most white LEDs run at 3.5 volts, so if you wire four of them in series you can run them directly with the battery charger and you will not need any dropping resistors.
Here is an article on LED lights: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzLR4 ... k5MDg5ODk3

I guess I should have clarified about the style of light I was looking to make. Nothing points down. Also since these are 12V lights there shouldn't be an issue just running them all in series correct? (maybe about 15 lights) The battery shouldn't be a problem.

Dave

If the lamps use LEDs and are intended to be powered at 12 volts they would have to have built in dropping resistors. The lights would have to be wired in parallel. If you do use LEDs those only operate over a narrow voltage range, if you go a half of a volt too high you will greatly shorten their life and if you go a volt too high they will burn out in seconds. A fully charged battery is 12.5 volts. If you use a power supply you can't always go by the nameplate voltage rating, you have to measure the voltage with a load applied then pick the correct dropping resistors.