Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Hey guys, to help with the pulsing of LED's at low speeds, try connecting a capacitor into your wiring. Assuming you are using a dc generator (very important) you can put a capacitor across from the generator's + and - and it will function as a very short life battery to cover the power needs of your lights while the generator magnet makes another lap. This is a bit of a balance because if the LED circuit needs more power than your generator is producing at low speeds then you will still have pulsing. I have also employed a step down converter to step from 12v to 5v to drive LED's. With a capacitor in parallel with the generator before the converter, the generator is able to run even slower without pulsing because the converter is limiting the amount of power flowing out to the LED's. The other benefit of using a dcdc converter is that it will keep your LED's at a constant light level regardless of generator speed.  So going back to the original question, I totally think you should do LED's but understand it will take a bit of extra effort to make it work for you!