Watts / Amps / Volts / mAh / CCA

[vampist]

Alright I'm not new to volts, I understand what watts, amps, and volts are.

What I was wondering is...

Say you have a 12V car battery, 800 CCA, and 50 Ah.
(not in car, just a fully charged battery)

Then you have an unlimited amount of LEDs.
You have sets connected together of 24 LEDs, 66 mA at 12V(DC).

How many strips of 24 LEDs could you connect to the battery and about how long would it last before the battery died?




Now, what if the battery was in a car? (car is running, thus battery charging)

 

[berry120]

My understanding is this:

I'm assuming here 66mA is the load each set draws, not each LED? CCA is pretty much irrelevant in this case. From those specs it's impossible to say since we don't know the maximum current that can be drawn from it continuously, but the 50Ah rating means you can connect 50amps worth of strips to the battery and expect it to last an hour before discharing. So that's 50/0.066 = around 757 banks of LEDs if you want the battery to last an hour. If you only want teh battery to last half an hour, then theoretically you could connect twice as many, providing 100amps doesn't exceed the maximum current draw of the battery (which in practice it probably will!)

If the battery was in a car and charging, then it entirely depends on how much current the alternator is providing to the battery, but if you didn't want to discharge it you'll have to draw less than that current. Also remember that when the car is idling the battery is barely charging, the charge rate isn't constant - the faster the alternator runs, the more it charges, but it's impossible to say how much without detailed specs of the alternator itself.

But - you wouldn't connect strips directly to your battery even if it's being charged, you'd connect it so when the alternator was running it'd be powered straight off that. You could run it by directly connecting it to the battery, but it'd wear it out very quickly.

 

[vampist]

My understanding is this:

I'm assuming here 66mA is the load each set draws, not each LED? CCA is pretty much irrelevant in this case. From those specs it's impossible to say since we don't know the maximum current that can be drawn from it continuously, but the 50Ah rating means you can connect 50amps worth of strips to the battery and expect it to last an hour before discharing. So that's 50/0.066 = around 757 banks of LEDs if you want the battery to last an hour. If you only want teh battery to last half an hour, then theoretically you could connect twice as many, providing 100amps doesn't exceed the maximum current draw of the battery (which in practice it probably will!)

If the battery was in a car and charging, then it entirely depends on how much current the alternator is providing to the battery, but if you didn't want to discharge it you'll have to draw less than that current. Also remember that when the car is idling the battery is barely charging, the charge rate isn't constant - the faster the alternator runs, the more it charges, but it's impossible to say how much without detailed specs of the alternator itself.

But - you wouldn't connect strips directly to your battery even if it's being charged, you'd connect it so when the alternator was running it'd be powered straight off that. You could run it by directly connecting it to the battery, but it'd wear it out very quickly.

Oh Alrighty. Thank you! You are one smart dude.