# Is my voltage divider calculation OK? Can I use it to power an LED? [duplicate]

I am planning on wiring 4 pin momentary push switch button that has a LED as well. The switch itself is fine with 20V, but the only problem is that the power source input is 20V and the LED requires 12V.How should I lower the voltage?

I was thinking of a voltage regulator, but I thought it is easier to work with color coded resistors, since I will be working on tight space. Now I salvaged the resistors and found 47Ohm and 33.4Ohm resistors.

When I did the simple math

$$V_{DIV} = 20V * {47 \over (47+33.4)} = 11.6915V$$

which is $0.3V$ lower than $12V$. Is this okay to be used?

Bear in mind I'm a newbie.

• This is actually a better duplicate: Using voltage divider in a circuit, but there are probably a dozen others. Aug 15 '17 at 4:14
• In electronics, the words Voltage Divider and Power usually do not mix together. When you do the simple math, don't forgot the simple assumption: no current drawn from Vout! This means that there is no problem to use it to divide the voltage of a Signal, but you can't use it like that with a Power Supply, which is what you want to do here. Aug 15 '17 at 7:49