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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
