The maximum current my transistors are designed for is 1.5 A (from collector to emitter).
I am looking to use a Raspberry Pi GPIO pin to switch a white LED strip on/off, by placing a transistor in the place of the ground wire of the LED strip.
The LED strip has a maximum current of 2.4 A. Can I use two transistors in parallel to supply the required current?
Below I've attached a rough schematic of what I mean, here I've coloured the wires going into the transistors' collectors as green and emitters as orange to distinguish between the two.
Secondly, is this safe?
Best Answer
Your schematic is hard to follow, normally it is top down and left to right. Your + should be on the top and your ground at the bottom. Yes you can parallel transistors but you need to add low ohm emitter resistors so they balance. You will lose between 0.7V to 1.4V depending on the transistor. Consider using a logic level N-Channel MOSFET, you will only need one and it will be much cooler. When you pick the MOSFET try to find something with a Vgs at least 2.5V or lower. With that I would put a 10K resistor from the GPIO pin to ground and something around 50 Ohm between the gate and GPIO pin. Be sure all grounds are connected. Source would be ground, Drain would be the output and the Gate is the input.