Hand wiring up smd led's

Jon Slaughter · 2008-10-15T04:13:17+00:00

For an application I want to do it is out of the question to use pcb as I need to minimize the footprint of the circuit as much as possible. It consists of just led's and wires(the drivers are a different store).The link gives the led's I probably will use but these things are very small. I need to attach wires to each of the LED's(I have done this using magnet wire but it won't work well because it is too big(I think 26 gauge).I need to run 6(or potentially just 3 if I have to) in series which gives 18+1 wires. Each led will consume max 25mA and therefor the ground must carry 18*25 ~= 1/2 amp. I can use the 24 gauge for that but need much smaller "hair like" wire for the anode connections.The biggest bitch about it is going to be wiring up 24 groups of these ;/ I can't see how to prevent the wires from breaking off the led's. (I already screwed up the pads on one trying to get the 24-gauge wire solidered on... it's almost bigger than the led itself ;/)I figure with thinner wire it will be easier to solder(maybe make a jig or something somehow to hold the wires down) but the wires will break easier(Although they are more flexible).What I am doing is drilling one in the surface plane of a piece of wood that will carry the wires and holes into the wood to hold the led's. I need to minimize as much damage to the wood as possible(hence the small led's and wires only).I'm thinking that by using 32-gauge magnet wire I might be able to at least get somewhere but I've not worked with such small wire before. And chances are I'll need something even smaller ;/ Also each I'll be PWM each led which may or may not matter.Any ideas?Thanks,Jon

Oct 15, 2008 23 Replies

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Nico Coesel 17 years ago

That works perfectly. I do all my prototyping that way.

Programmeren in Almere? E-mail naar nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)

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Jon Slaughter 17 years ago

no. Each led is independently controlled.

every led is attached to the same ground directly. (the rgb led's are 3 led's packaged as one and hence 3 seperate cathodes(this is a small problem with soldering too).

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JosephKK 17 years ago

You might try finding thermal wire strippers, plenty of temperature and position control.

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Jasen Betts 17 years ago

If you could go to organic leds it could be a membrane overlay if you can find room for the chips outside of the guitar.

not easy to prototype though.

Bye. Jasen

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