Ive never worked with LEDs before, but im lookin into it... i wanna put a few in a window maybe or light up a mouse pad, or i dunno what exactly, but i wanna know how to!!! I know you need the LED (duh) and i got a sodering iron and soder, but ive heard stuff about resistors, and how exactly would i get power to them and stuff??? (i know i sounds like a COMPLETE moron) but i'd rather find out than sittin here doin nuthin, and then try it and fry somethin, so if someone could help me out w/ the basics of LEDs or link me to somewhere that can.... that'd be great!
I knew that much about a month ago. With the help of these forums I have learned a lot The resistance calulator on the Bit-Tech site will help you a lot. I think it is in the Articles section. You can use use that to find out what ohm resistor you need. Since LED's are diodes, voltage will only flow one way. So if you hook the LED in backwards you don't have to worry about it. I always mix up the annode and cathode, so I won't say what does what to prevent you from getting confused. But you want to put the voltage up the end connected to the small part of the LED.
you need to know the specs on the LED, and will give you the specs on what resistor you need.. -scoob8000
If you look at the package an LED comes in from say, Radioshack you will see all the infromation you need. (mA, etc). It is calculating what ohm resistor you would need. The great part about it is that it gives you the closest 5% resistor. This makes it very easy to go out and grab 'em at radioshack! - My goal is to keep this post high on the forum so someone who knows more than me can fill in the gaps
where does the resitor go? (ive got no idea what im doin yet... obviously) and how will i get power to the LED?
The resistor will drop the power going to the LED so that you don't fry it. You can get the power to the LED from a molex connector inside your case. The red wire is 5v and the yellow is 12. You are going to want to use the red wire. For some of the bright blue's and whites you don't even need a resistor. But you are usually going to want one. Often a 100ohm does the trick
so i would just take a molex or fan cable, cut into it, and soder a wire into it? then run that into a resistor and then into the LED... makes sence, but is there anywhere i can get a good intro to LEDs and how they work and how to set them up to accually see whats goin on before i try somethin w/out knowin exactly what im doin...
I'm totally new to this too so I'll try and add some help from my perspective (ie: someone who knows hardly anything) Grab some LEDs (I ordered mine from farnell.com) Check the voltage specs on the website when you order them Use the calculator thing to see what resistor you need Solder a black wire (from a molex connector) to the shortest of the led legs Solder one leg of the resistor to the red wire (from the molex) and the other to the longer leg of the LED (resistors can go either way around). And that should do it Bear in mind that I'm just going by my limited experiments with a spare PSU away from my main PC, so I could be totally wrong. If something blows up don't blame me
well i'll try it out...... i think i understand most of it now.... what kinda wire would i use??? and would i just splice it right into a molex cable??? would a fan cable work???
The wire doesn't really matter. You want something easy to bend, easy to work with. So a thin wire like a 20/22awg wire should work just fine.
I say you get a multimeter, test the LED and see what kinda voltage it can handle, cause some of them can handle 5v or so, so there would be no need for a resistor, just plug it into the red wire on your molex(red=5v yellow=12v), so I dunno get some cheap red ones or something first to experiment, ive only blown like 50 leds, so im not doin too bad
The box says how many volts it takes. Like this Green LED I have takes 2.1. If you are around 4-5 you fry them. This green LED got fried. :/
i was thinkin about testin em w/ a few AA batteries before i started tarin into my molex cables and possibly screwin sumthin up..... good idea?? i think so...... haha i think i understand at least the basics now... one more question... when sodering into the molex, would i just strip a small section of plastic off the red, and wire a wire onto that and let power run through still to whatever its goin to, or would i have to sacrafice the molex and take out the red wire completely?
If you can get a male molex connector, you can solder the wires onto that (from the LEDs/Resistors) and then just connect to the the female molex plug coming from the PSU. The maplin code for the molex plug is JW64 Good luck
haha, anyone know the radio shack code??? would i have to sacrafice the the wire though, or would i still be able to plug a fan into the other end of the connector??? like [--R-----] - say thats the molex extention wire... [--B-----] --- = wire ] = end of wire [--B-----] [--Y-----] Would i be able to do this? Note: dots here are cause it wont let me use extra spaces - they dont mean anything - just for positioning... LED connector wire (arrow down) ........| [--R-----] [--B-----] [--B-----] [--Y-----] And still be able to connect somethin on the other end... or would i have to do this? .....| [--R......] [--B-----] [--B-----] [--Y-----] And have to sacraface the whole molex??? see what im asking???
