Help with LED attached to a switch

[mitchen]

hey guys, my first post, Unfortunately its a help request.
anyway my question is; i have build a circuit to allow me to power a fan etc... by attaching alligator clips to the wires. But i have just added 2 small LED like lights to my toggle safety switch to tell me when the circuit is running, but i have found that when the lights are attached the electricity is just finding an alternate route around the switch through the lights and the the clips regardless whether the switch is set to on or off.

does anyone have any suggestions to how i can still have the lights attached to the switch without allowing the power to find its route through the lights while bypassing the switch?
your help would be greatly Appreciated.

attached is a diagram which i found which is the outline to what i made.
(the red lines are where i have attached the lights)

 

[RODALCO]

Hi,
You have wired the Leds across the switch and they will be on when the switch is off.
Also the leds require a series resistor, otherwise they will burn out on 27 volts.
The LED's have to go in parallel with the fan and require a 2700 ohms resistor to limit the LED current to about 10 mA, ensure the correct polarity from the LED.

LED longer leg is usually positive and the flat side of the led casing indicates negative side of LED.

I don't know why you have two push buttons in series. one will suffice.

 

[mitchen]

sorry, i misstated the word LED, i couldnt think what they were, they are like LED but they dont have the long wires, they screw into a socket, and they are low voltage, so they hold up to around 40 volts without blowing, the 2 switches are so i cant acsidently set it off, so the 2 have to be pushed down to set it off. also with the lights, what i want is to be able to turn the toggle switch on and the lights come on

 

[RODALCO]

I'm lost as what you mean with those LED look alike items.
Neon lamp, Filament lamp ??

 

[mitchen]

umm, they would be filament lamps? 2 prong in the middle with a thin wire running between the 2 that glows then current passes through.

p.s. thank you alot for your help so far rodalco

 

[RODALCO]

Ok when these are lights and have the same voltage rating as the fan, they can be ran in parallel with the fan.
Otherwise say the fan is 12 volts, and the lamps are 6 volts , then put the two 6 volts lamps in series.

 

[philba]

run the lights between the the fan side of the switch and the negative terminal of the battery.

I recommend that you get a real LED because they will pull much less power. The fan will see slightly higher current and your batteries will last longer. Use a resistor in series with the LED. for the 27V you are showing in the diagram, use 2.7K resistor. For 18V, use a 1.6K (or 2K) one and 750 (or 1K) for 9V. They should be 1/4 watt. You can use somewhat larger resistors but not smaller.

 

[Hero999]

Why are you using such a high voltage?

I've seen some 24V DC fans that will run upto 28V but they aren't that common. Normally fans are rated to 12V, 5V or even 3.3V.

 

[RODALCO]

You are actually best off and certainly cheaper long term to abandon the 9 volt batteries and get a 24 v dc plug pack to run the fan and leds off.

 

[mitchen]

thanx so much for your help guys

im using such a high voltage because im using it for other purposes to, and also the more current going into the fan im using the faster it is spinning

 

[januar1983]

you can use the relay to activated the lamp, so if you on the fan you on too the relay, relay can drive a big current