Ahoy from the Hills

I got a lift from Islamorada FL without having to stick out my thumb, we drove straight through swapping drivers and only stopping for fuel. We weren't even inside the Fayetteville City limits yet when we got pulled over by FPD on the interstate for a random search, I forgot how much police presence there is in this state.
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Mattie and I are in Fayetteville AR catching up with old friends. It's nice to be back home for a visit, even if it is a bit cold up here. It's nice to see familiar faces and really nice to be around Arkansas women again but I've had to schedule my time and make appointments to see everybody. Since I have been home I've been eating very well (almost nonstop) and haven't paid for a beer yet.

Nothing much changes in Fayetteville, I compare it to ground hog day, a few changes I have noticed is the emptiness of Dickson ST, another parking garage and more bicycle trails. When I started out on this voyage I was happy to get away from all the sounds of the shore, the engines and car noises, and most of all the sirens, train horns don't seem to bother me too much.

I made a masthead light and hope someone else may benefit from my learning experience. There is not a lot of power to spare on Waltzing Matilda and I have wanted LED running and anchor lights for some time but $150 bulbs are not in the beer budget. In true cruiser fashion I have fashioned some lights myself and run into a few small difficulties I would like to share.

My 1st attempt was pitiful but free, I discovered a bar in Key West (Fat Tuesdays) sells these goofy light up plastic mugs with red, green and blue LEDs in the base, I scored a few from the dumpster, pulled them out of the original circuit board and soldered them parallel to a DIY board (used a safety pin to drill bits from the mugs) with some foraged white LEDs to make a tri light. I used a automotive cell phone charger to drop 12V to 4.5V, and viola..... not bright enough.

The second attempt was not free but less pitiful. I went to SurplusGizmos.com and purchased 16 70ma Piranha LEDs, after shipping it was a total of $20 worth of beer money. Since I am home for the holidays I have better tools to use than I can carry in the boat including a great adjustable power supply from a model train set.

I soldered 4 red, 4 green and 4 white in parallel arrays and powered them up to test. The red was nice and bright, the green and white, not so much. If I disconnected red the green and white lit up. Once the red was on it sucked all the power, so it seems, the red array draws twice as many amps as the green and white combined. Using a multimeter as an adjustable resistor I found I could get all three arrays to light up by limiting the power that went to the red array on the negative line but had no way to see how many amps were being used (I only have 1 multimeter).

I found a resistance calculator for LEDs online and according to it I need a 30ohm resistor to solve my problem and make all 3 arrays light. If anyone that reads this and knows more about LEDs than me I'd appreciate if you can contribute some info, I don't know much about electronics. I know what the markings on a the resistor I need look like, I'll just have to find a toy in the dumpster to find the right one.

I haven't encased the new lights in epoxy yet, but they will be before I climb the stick

I'm heading back down south in early Janurary, a few weeks recharging my internal batteries will be nice.