I need more IR light back in my wooded area. I only have 12V AC power out there. I'm starting to look today for AC powered IR lights, but I'm hoping someone may know. I don't believe solar powered IR would work back there if there is such a thing. Thanks!
Or this ==>> Bridgold 5pcs KBPC5010 Bridge Rectifier Diode,50A 1000V Single Phase,Full Wave 50 Amp 1000 Volt Electronic Silicon Diodes,Through Hole 4-Pin
There are some smaller and cheaper full wave bridge rectifier packs but they require soldering. This has a mounting hole and allows soldering OR slip-on lugs. $9 for 5 pieces, too.
Just apply your 12VAC across the "AC" tabs and out comes the 12VDC on the positive "+" and the negative "-" tabs.
EDIT: In my haste I left out some important information. This bridge performs no regulation, only rectifying so more components are required on it's DC output. Thanks to @Mark_M for reminding me. It seems that 20 years of retirement has taken a toll on my gray matter..
Great info guys, thanks for the replies. I had no idea AC -> DC converters like this existed! I should be able to get plenty of IR light back there now.
Or this ==>> Bridgold 5pcs KBPC5010 Bridge Rectifier Diode,50A 1000V Single Phase,Full Wave 50 Amp 1000 Volt Electronic Silicon Diodes,Through Hole 4-Pin
There are some smaller and cheaper full wave bridge rectifier packs but they require soldering. This has a mounting hole and allows soldering OR slip-on lugs. $9 for 5 pieces, too.
Just apply your 12VAC across the "AC" tabs and out comes the 12VDC on the positive "+" and the negative "-" tabs. View attachment 168825
Example of a power supply using such a bridge rectifier, the capacitor is in parallel.
Here's the AC waveform of 12v RMS (16.97 peak-peak). Frequency is different for ease of viewing the graph.
If you put that through a bridge rectifier it just allows the positive half of the sinewave to come through. The voltage between the two output terminals is still fluctuating between 0v and peak voltage.
With a capacitor in parallel to your full-bridge rectifier, the output is smoothed a lot more but will still experience some voltage ripple.
Secondary of your AC transformer current is roughly 1.8 times current on the DC output (1.8 * I_dc.)
An IR spot light should handle some ripple fine..... more sensitive loads should have better regulation. You can buy buck-stepdown modules or linear voltage regulators for this.
I have a dc led strip light running off the 12v ac my landscape lights use. A simple bridge rectifier does the job. The strip light was cheap, so I wasn't afraid to try it without a regulator.
I have a dc led strip light running off the 12v ac my landscape lights use. A simple bridge rectifier does the job. The strip light was cheap, so I wasn't afraid to try it without a regulator.
Generally, in such an application you might get some flicker from the LED's due to no filter capacitor and/or no regulation but I would think it's no big deal, it's not like you are trying to use it to read by so some flicker is tolerable.
For whatever reason, maybe a bunch of leds in the strip has some capacitance, I see no flicker. Or maybe 60 cycles per second is faster than I can see it.