Use an Led Driver With Battery Operated Led Fairy Lights Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[Smitty]

Hey!

I have two sets of battery operated led fairy lights, 3x1.5v AA batteries. My question is, can I safely strip off the battery pack and wire the lights to an led driver to replace an existing ceiling light?

[ericmark]

The problem is lighting manufacturers are not very good with names, they tend to use wrong names like the Electronic ballast, Electronic transformer and Driver.

A driver should be a current limiting device, but often it just means anything used to work LED lamps.

So to basics, the LED is a current dependent device, it may have a threshold voltage, but it is the current that matters. There are many ways to limit current but most likely with Christmas lights is the simple resistor, the battery limits voltage and the resistor limits current.

So with original resistor in place with three batteries likely 4.5 volt replacing the battery with another 4.5 volt supply will likely work. But with a 320 mA true driver than there is no voltage limit it can likely be anywhere between 1.2 and 50 volt.

So forget the name, what does it say on the device (LED driver) say on it? Does it for example say 12 volt, or 3 to 50 volt, or 20 to 120 watt or 320 mA?

I would guess the voltage is too high, but until you say what it says on the dropper I can't really answer the question.