Weird LEDs Print E-mail
Wednesday, 22 March 2006 17:23

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I have a slight addiction to shiney things...  So, anyhow, the nice folk at LEDSales were happy to oblige and supplied me with some neat LEDs for a very resonable price.

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These are Russian-made side-view LEDs and are about 2mm big.  They have a rated current of around 6ma.  I am running the one in the photo at about 8ma. 

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They are supplied on a strip of metal and were used in the viewfinder of the Russian-made Lomo camera.  Date of manufacture is unknown.  These cost 10c each - thought it was a bargain!
 

  
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Some time before high-brightness LEDs were around, Toshiba tried to make a brighter-than-the-average-LED by putting in 2 LEDs in one. 
 
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Looking into the end of the LED, you can see the two die cubes, and this is what they look like when they're on, running at about 17ma - the LED glows a pale yellow colour.
 
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This is a multi chip LED - in fact, there are 4 die cubes on the end of this baby.  They were supplied with little diffusing lenses (not shown) - again I would think that they pre-date high brightness LEDs.
 
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They look a litte different to the average LED, with round pins and a formed plastic base, as opposed to the regular stamped legs with the moulded base of a standard LED.  Looking into the end of the LED, you can clearly see the structure of the element.
 
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Here I have two LEDs running - you can clearly see the fine wire running from die to die within the body of the LED.  These are running at about 12ma and have a very warm red/orage colour.
 
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