Results tagged “IC” from The GPSy EV Project

An anonymous poster criticized my use of LM317 chips as current regulators for high-power LEDs. While I think they are great for 350 mA single LEDs, they are clearly inappropriate for the 12 watt LED that I was playing with.

My LED was taking around 800 mA @ 12 volts. A little searching around reveals that a good alternative is the AP8803 which is a LED buck driver which can handle 1 amps @ 8-30 volts. The nice thing (aside from its 92% efficiency) is that you can set up a dimmer circuit on it using minimal parts -- or PWM control from a microcontroller.

When I was first starting out with the Piaggio conversion, I was monitoring my power consumption using a Doc Wattson / Watt's Up. Good for checking on amp-hours used, voltage, etc.

A few weeks into the conversion, I dropped my bike chain on the Doc Wattson and broke the LCD glass. Very annoying -- they should provide a lexan cover on things like this that will get banged around.

I asked the manufacturer if they did repairs and they didn't. I asked them for the spec on the LCD and they said it wasn't divulge-able. They did give me a discount on my second one and I threw the old one in my "crash" bin.

Well, fast forward a few months more and I've been working with STAMPS and PICs and know a bit more about LCD screens -- especially how most 16x2 displays are driven using the same HD44780 IC chip.

Time to open the Doc Wattson up and see what's in it.

More after the jump