At 12:19 PM 2/7/2003, Robert Steven Fish wrote:
>Couldn't you just throw a resistor into the circuit, like you would to get
>the voltage down from 12-14 to the 2-4 volts necessary for an LED lamp??

Sure -- and if you have a known constant load it's the cheapest way.  But
all you're doing is wasting the difference as heat (suppose you needed ten
watts at six volts -- your load would use ten watts, and the resistor would
use another ten).  A series regulator (I got my names mixed before, a shunt
regulator is even worse!) simply acts like a resistor in series, but it
changes its effective resistance to keep the output constant under varying
loads.

So yes -- but it's no win.  Ohm's law is hard to hide from.

david

--
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"