Quote:
Originally Posted by bumblebee3339
I've just thought about it, if the battery is more than 12V, would it damage the LEDs? (When the value for the controller is 1)
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Just to make sure there aren't any future misunderstandings...
Going along with your logic above, you wouldn't just have a problem with the voltage level being too high when the controller is being commanded with a "1". You would have a problem
ALL the time.
It's important to remember that the motor controllers don't regulate the output voltage, they simply connect and disconnect the output to the battery (very quickly). For example when you command the motor controller to "0.5" it's not sending you 50% of the battery voltage. Instead 50% of the time the motor controller is connected to the battery, and 50% of the time it isn't (Call this the "off time"). What it's doing during the "off time" how the controller is designed. It may connect both terminals to ground, or both to 12V, it may leave them both floating, or it may short the two together.
Also, if using a speed controller, you need to be careful that your output polarity never switches. Speed controllers are designed to allow you to run a motor in forward and reverse. So if you wire your lights to the speed controller and the polarity gets reversed (commanded the controller to a negative value), the light circuit may not take kindly to this. This may not be a concern if your LED circuit is literally just LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), as the diodes themselves will prevent current flow in the reverse direction. But if the LED strip had any active components on it, they might let out their magic smoke.