need help with low voltage led circuit

Sep 29, 2004 4 Replies

Just two led's? Connect them in series, with a resistor in the circuit.

Battery+-------resistor------led1------led2-------battery- A K A K

A = led anode K = led cathode

try 470 ohms for the resistor to start. The lower the resistance, the brighter the led's and the shorter the battery life. Don't go below, say, 150 ohms. The limiting case is R=0, infinite brightness, dead LED, which is what you're doing now.

John

You need a current limiting resistor in series with each LED - something around 1000 ohms should be OK (the value is not critical - lower resistance gives more current, and a brighter LED).

Peter Bennett VE7CEI email: peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca GPS and NMEA info and programs: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/index.html Newsgroup new user info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/nnq

--- Connect one 390 ohm quarter watt resistor between each LED and the battery.

View with a fixed pitch font like Courier:

+---[390R]---[LED>]---+ | | +---[390R]---[LED>]---+ | | . . . . . . | | +---[390R]---[LED>]---+ |+ | [BATTERY] | |- | +---------------------+

-- John Fields

I need to build a board with painted animals( got it) with led eyes that light up at night. I've tried to wire it up, but the led bulbs keep burning out. I am using a 9 voltbattery. Any wiring suggestions?



If LEDs are burning out, it's almost certain to be your circuit. Perhaps you have no current limiting for the LEDs against the 9V source? But none of us are psychic, so what's the circuit you are currently using?

Jon

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