Best place to get hold of LEDS

Good Morning,

Would like to make some displays with LEDs and was after some suggestions about the best places to get them from ? In particular after 5mm LEDS, nice high brightness ones of different colours. Ive seen plenty of places on the web with varying prices - can anyone comment which makes are best and which to keep away from ?

I remember LEDS always used to pretty much last forever but have noticed increasingly that in some consumer products they seem to be dying early.....

Thanks

Cheers

James

Reply to
Criminal
Loading thread data ...

Even DSE still stock a wide variety of LEDs. Well, last time I looked anyway ....

geoff

Reply to
geoff

Of various dubious quality and sources of course. If the OP is serious about getting and specing quality known LEDs then you have to go to the quality suppliers like Farnell, Digikey Mouser etc. Quality brands are the likes of Kingbright, Vishay, Avago to name a few. If you buy from Jaycar/DSE/Futurlec/ebay etc it's just a lucky-dip, you get whatever fell off the Shenzen truck last week.

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
David L. Jones

:geoff wrote: :> Criminal wrote: :>> Good Morning, :>>

:>>

:>> Would like to make some displays with LEDs and was after some :>> suggestions about the best places to get them from ? In particular :>> after 5mm LEDS, nice high brightness ones of different colours. Ive :>> seen plenty of places on the web with varying prices - can anyone :>> comment which makes are best and which to keep away from ? :>>

:>> I remember LEDS always used to pretty much last forever but have :>> noticed increasingly that in some consumer products they seem to be :>> dying early..... :>

:>

:> Even DSE still stock a wide variety of LEDs. Well, last time I looked :> anyway .... : :Of various dubious quality and sources of course. :If the OP is serious about getting and specing quality known LEDs then you :have to go to the quality suppliers like Farnell, Digikey Mouser etc. :Quality brands are the likes of Kingbright, Vishay, Avago to name a few. :If you buy from Jaycar/DSE/Futurlec/ebay etc it's just a lucky-dip, you get :whatever fell off the Shenzen truck last week. : :Dave.

I fully concur with your recommendation Dave.

Reply to
Ross Herbert

For LED"s you can't go past Tenrod Australia, I buy heaps of LED's from them and never have any problems.

They are sellers of Kingbright and Dominant LED's. Dominant are now making some great value 5mm LED"s.

you

get

Reply to
Techo

Podcast:

formatting link

In both the DSE's that I go to locally - even their LED display board (display unit with each type of LED lit and a momentary action toggle switch you can use to bring them to full brightness to "try before you buy") has several examples failed - and not fixed. Hardly a good advertisement.

Have bought a couple of the bags of standard LEDS (100 pack) from DSE for general use, used about 70% of them so far and had no trouble with them, but the last lot I got would have been 2006-7 or so.

I wouldn't trust the high brightness LEDs though from the cheap sources.

I have heard many complaints of even high spec, higher brightness category of LED's failing prematurely, and for no obvious reason. Even running them well under published specs doesn't seem to help extend their lives. Everywhere where I see LED traffic lights, its quite usual to see a significant number of blown LED's in them. The "turn arrow" ones seem more reliable for some reason.

For this reason, if you want high brightness / high performance LEDS, especially in a critical application I agree you should not cut corners.

Reply to
KR

If you want cheap LEDs (and will spend more than $25USD) try

formatting link
They are OK to deal with and the LEDs seem OK too. The LEDs work, are colour matched and pretty much as expected.

Reply to
David Eather

formatting link

I have done business with them once and was completely satisfied.

G.

Reply to
glenbadd

Good Morning,

Thanks everyone for your responses, gives me a few things to look at

Cheers

Reply to
Criminal

EBAY is the place to go for almost any kind of LED related stuff IMHO. Most suppliers are direct mainland chinese based and they seem to be building a technological base of manufacturing and development as well. They are producing "Lumiled Like" high power leds, but also have an impressive lineup of lesser power leds in all the usual colors, red, green, blue, white (both phospher based as well as "soft white" RGB multichip non-phospher types), yellow, UV, and so on. They are the only place I've found 5-chip ultra bright white leds (100ma). They are quickly developing "off the shelf" product applications like spotlight/floodlight replacements, T-8 fluorescent replacements, panel meters, smd backlighting, etc. Along with this is a bunch of "less useful" applications that usually don't continue to be offered if they don't sell. I think they are just trying to conceive of uses no matter how crazy, and are "throwing them at the wall and keeping what 'sticks'". Topping it all off, shipping is free most places and they ship as fast as anyone via mail. The LEDs they manufacture are world class, IMHO. They are also only a fraction of the cost of the "non-chinese" equivilents. regards, Joe.

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:53:42 -0700 (PDT), Criminal wrote:

snipped-for-privacy@upwardaccess.com

Reply to
pcfixr

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.