@@judo-rob5197 When I was getting my Computer Science degree, we had a book called Programming Proverbs. It was a small about 6x9 inch paperback loaded with good advice. One of the proverbs that I always remembered was "Re-read the manual". The point made was that there is a lot of stuff that goes over your head the first time around. In a lot of cases that is because you haven't a clue how to use a particular feature. After you have been at it for a while, the feature in question may be applicable to something that you are trying to do. Case in point: I had not been aware of how to calculate the current limiting resistor value before I saw it here. I just always used what I picked up a long time ago which was the rule of thumb to use something around 270-330 ohms. That, I now understand to be because everything was 5V TTL back then and those values worked out for the LEDs that we were using.
I like to say “if I haven’t seen it, it’s new to me!” I’m other words, I’m going to watch because I know I will learn something. Love your vids! Keep up the great work. Peace!
I think you accidentally mis-stated Ohm's law as V=I/R at around the 10 minute mark, and at least once later. V= I x R, of course. You still get a thumbs up, though.
Really appreciate the patient explanation and demo. Thankyou. My reason for looking up electronic tutorials is because I wanted to understand what might go into modifying a radio to add back lighting for tuner dials and to add mp3/ Bluetooth modules to enhance radios. Lots of good stuff in these videos to show why I shouldn't bother buying a solder kit. Better to find that out before investing!
Nice video. Really helpful. Only criticism would be the way you state Ohm's law. V DOESN'T equal I over R. When you did the calculation you used it correctly: V= IR
I’m glad you did this video. I know there are a lot of people out there that will need it. I enjoy all of your videos even if I think I’m very familiar with the topic… You still teach me something every time!
It may be basic but this was VERY good. A lot of things work, but this was a huge help to really understand the correct way to use LEDs. Thank you for your efforts.
Good job on this. I am retired electric lineman and now wondering what kind of projects I can do to keep my little brain working. Thank you for the good lesson on LEDs. Do you have any suggestions on power supplies? Thanks again,
Hi Paul: Finally a explination in laymans terms. I'm going to make up a chart from you drawings as a reference for future LED wiring. Thank you so much. Chuck
As someone who hadn't thought about annodes and cathodes in 5+ years (GCSE chemistry) and is trying to learn electronics, this is so useful! especially as i don't understand your other vids as I have no clue what's being said, but I'm learning!!
Thanks, my white led was shutting down my orange and green in a parallel circuit. I didn't know the advanced voltage was even a consideration with LEDs. awesome thanks.
I think like a lot of people, I have somehow managed to fudge my way through life without ever learning the true basics of LEDs... thank you for putting this right.
Thank you so much for this video, I've got an LED project I'm going to work on and gathering as much information as I can on it before I start and this was very good for setting some ground rules for me.
Thanks for anther great educational video.. there is always something to learn from you eg the internals of a diode. I know the basisc of electronics but i often dive into the beginners titled vids to see what knowledge pple pass on. Cheers from Down Under..
Something I learned from AvE (I think) years ago that lets you instantly remember which lead is positive on LEDs or electrolytics: you can create a + sign with the longer lead by cutting the extra length off and turning it sideways. Physical memory tricks like that have really helped me along the way. Another one I just remembered is how to remember which wire is live and which wire is neutral in US home wiring: put the two wires out in the sun, the black one gets hot and the white one stays neutral.
In the real world component leads are often trimmed so you cannot count on one being longer than the other. So you're better off looking inside the LED to see what polarity it is. There you just remember the bigger bit is the ground. I also equate the bigger bit to being the "land". I've heard of anvil and post but that has no meaning to me. Land on the other hand is earth or ground.
Fantastic video, very concise and informative. You answer one of the most basic questions for enthusiast looking for a simple answer regarding LED's. I subscribed and going to go through your other videos, little refresher never hurt anyone, even someone whos been into electronics for 30 some years.
tell the truth, you were looking for an excuse to ope n that new box of LED's. ; ) "I love back to basic's," I think your the only one who do them! IN FACT IM SURE OF IT. never stop doing them!! i think you can guess what comes next "COOL VIDEO PAUL" : )
Great video Mr. !! You killed 3 innocent LEDs for imparting your knowledge to the world ! I'm subscribing to your channel right away. Love from Singapore.
My 'UV' leds I harvested from a nail polish curing thing have a forward voltage of 7.3 volts. measured on a keithly dmm-6500 cause that seemed high lol
You are listing the voltages for each color, are we to assume the the amperage is @.20ma? If this is true why do your voltages not match the voltages listed on the 5mm case chart that you showed us? As well as looking at the manufacturer standards sheet, I noticed your voltages do not match. I like my LED intensities to match and voltage is important for that to happen.
I had a friend that hated LEDs. He tried to use them in his model railroad and they'd always blow up on him. I guess he didn't get the whole thing about limiting the current?
This was basic, This was cool, The way electronics should be Next .. probably a good idea to teach them connecting LED's in Series with calculations then Connecting LED's in Parallel with calculations Maybe go into LED strips for them with IC so they understand how to test them I recently had people asking me how to test LED strips that they thought were faulty but didn't realize it had a built in IC
I remember it by saying the first letter in the alphabetical order is positive. A is before C this seems to work with lots of things. I also tend to use a small battery 3235 to test.them before I soilder.them
Blowman...in your demonstration...you've blown more discrete LEDs than l've been able to come across as a diy enthusiast, liking Texas Instruments, Forrest Mims Project books. You have a interesting and informative method. Don't take the "blowman" comment as a insult...it's just something we workers would say to each other in a battery plant. Congratulations...l subscribed!
Thanks for this video. Could you do the next stage ,that is , lets say, running 4 of the same Led's in the circuit. Daisy chained.. against running the 4 in parallel?? I would find that very helpful. Best regards Don Codman
Interesting,. Looking to find a video to explain the resistor size needed to drive some 0.5W LEDs I just got off of allyexpress. Sadly only information I've been given on them is that they are 1/2Watt, and voltage. How do I convert Watts to amps
great video, nice to be refreshed on ohms law .. may i ask a question .... if i was using 9 led's, in series .. do i need a resistor for each led? or does 1 resistor work the same and what wire needed for a 9v current .... any help would be appreciated , thanks.
8:11 Thank you so much for mentioning this! The 20mA rule-of-thumb seems to have deeply ingrained itself into the industry, even to those who should know better. Here's a little rant I go off on about LED intensity: TLDR: Your LED current should be high enough to be visible in the final application, AND NO HIGHER. 20mA is a starting point but ask more questions. Does it need to be bright enough to wake up the operator when it lights? Will the operator need to see other features of your device next to a glaring LED? Does it need to be visible in full sunlight, or is it expected to live next to a home theatre? Could you find a different part that doesn't blind at 20mA? 20mA may be a nominal forward current, but it is not necessarily the best current for your design. When using generic blue LEDs in particular, 20mA will range from uncomfortable to blinding for most indoor applications. The LED datasheet should also have a graph mapping relative intensity to current. 1 is usually at 20mA, but sufficient brightness may come as low as 10 or even 5mA (keeping in mind that consistency between LEDs can become an issue at lower currents.) 20mA is a good starting point, but I recommend setting your circuit next to your monitor or television pointed at your face. At the same time, watch a video to see how irritating it might be--especially in a darkened room. Engineering is about more than hitting the high points of the datasheet; it's about meeting the design specifications and sometimes asking what the specification should be when someone forgot to consider it. Before blue LEDs were available, the industry apparently coalesced around 20mA, creating a standard, comfortable viewing intensity. You could design your indicators around this value without worrying whether it would be comfortably visible. When blue LEDs came along, it seems the industry decided the 20mA "standard" was more important than how blindingly (literally) efficient they are at that current. Virtually every device with a blue LED that I've owned has been irritatingly bright. I have a tower fan with blue indicators that I've had to cover, so the light in my room at night doesn't keep me awake. I also owned a small audio mixer with a pair of blue 7-segment displays and a blue power LED. If the engineers put any thought into them at all, they must have assumed this mixer would only be used at outdoor festivals and the like. In a darkened theatre environment, they had to be covered up so you could see the controls around them, and your shadow wasn't burned into the back wall. Indeed, one might think marketing was involved and assumed that their device being visible from low-earth orbit would be free advertising. I have another mixer from the same brand with an orange power LED. It sits just below my primary monitor. It is just dim enough in my darkened room below a dark-themed screen that I'm not constantly distracted by thoughts of voiding the warranty to replace its resistor with a higher value.
What’s the difference between common cathode versus common anode LEDs please? I take it one works the way you show and the other is reverse of that? Am I correct in thinking this?
great video.ez to learn the way you do it. can you do or explain to me how this would work if youre powering a clock LED bulb under AC power 120V? i calculated a resistor like 11,450. is that possible. did I do it right?
I am such a beginner in electronics. Thanks for being so very clear. There's one thing I am just not able to get my brain around. I understand that it is understood that the conventional understanding is that electricity flows from positive to negative and not from negative to positive. So hooking up an LED or diode would then be from negative to positive in-order for the actual current to flow from negative to positive but that is not the way you were hooking up your diode. Please can you once and for all clarify this misconception for us. Thanks. Oh, when you say "forward voltage". Does this mean that this is the minimum voltage that the LED will light up? Or is this the loss of voltage as the current goes across the LED? Thank again for your video post.
Oops! I @7:22 I think you meant to say current is the rate of charge (i.e. Coulombs/second). The "electrical push" is, of course, voltage. Thank you for the video. Most instructions I've seen just say to add a current limiting resistor, but don't mention why, or how to calculate the value.
I was installing a "DeJitter" mod on a 1chip Super NES "junior" the other day (SNS-101) and someone had already installed an LED that was directly wired to 5v and ground... no resistor. Someone drilled a tiny
The man's a natural born teacher. Outstanding tutorial for a beginner.
I always watch the beginner videos because I always learn something that I missed before.
Me too. Never over estimate your knowledge on a subject. I learned several things from this beginner video.
@@judo-rob5197 When I was getting my Computer Science degree, we had a book called Programming Proverbs. It was a small about 6x9 inch paperback loaded with good advice. One of the proverbs that I always remembered was "Re-read the manual". The point made was that there is a lot of stuff that goes over your head the first time around. In a lot of cases that is because you haven't a clue how to use a particular feature. After you have been at it for a while, the feature in question may be applicable to something that you are trying to do. Case in point: I had not been aware of how to calculate the current limiting resistor value before I saw it here. I just always used what I picked up a long time ago which was the rule of thumb to use something around 270-330 ohms. That, I now understand to be because everything was 5V TTL back then and those values worked out for the LEDs that we were using.
Absolutely agree. The anvil explanation was new to me!
Nicely explained. Please ensure the LEDs are laid to rest with full honours. They paid the ultimate price in the quest for illumination...
It never hurts to go back to the very basics - thanks Paul
I like to say “if I haven’t seen it, it’s new to me!”
I’m other words, I’m going to watch because I know I will learn something. Love your vids! Keep up the great work. Peace!
I think you accidentally mis-stated Ohm's law as V=I/R at around the 10 minute mark, and at least once later. V= I x R, of course. You still get a thumbs up, though.
Really appreciate the patient explanation and demo. Thankyou.
My reason for looking up electronic tutorials is because I wanted to understand what might go into modifying a radio to add back lighting for tuner dials and to add mp3/ Bluetooth modules to enhance radios.
Lots of good stuff in these videos to show why I shouldn't bother buying a solder kit. Better to find that out before investing!
Nice video. Really helpful. Only criticism would be the way you state Ohm's law. V DOESN'T equal I over R. When you did the calculation you used it correctly: V= IR
I believe you touched on the best info for the basics and learning tips and tricks.this will help so many people
Excellent video! Thank you for explaining so clearly. Wish I'd had you in school!
I’m glad you did this video. I know there are a lot of people out there that will need it. I enjoy all of your videos even if I think I’m very familiar with the topic… You still teach me something every time!
I appreciate that!
Excellent teacher . Keep up the good works, Sir.. thank you.
Thanks for the valuable lesson as I'm new to electronics.
Absolutely Brilliant introduction, so clear and concise.
Many thanks and Kind Regards
From the U.K.
It may be basic but this was VERY good. A lot of things work, but this was a huge help to really understand the correct way to use LEDs. Thank you for your efforts.
This is the best, most clear video I’ve come across on this subject. Excellent job and thanks very much.
Excellent presentation style. Thank you so much.
This was great! Thank you. I am a complete beginner. I am working on projects & this really helps.
You're very welcome!
Good job on this. I am retired electric lineman and now wondering what kind of projects I can do to keep my little brain working.
Thank you for the good lesson on LEDs. Do you have any suggestions on power supplies? Thanks again,
Hi Paul:
Finally a explination in laymans terms. I'm going to make up a chart from you drawings as a reference for future LED wiring. Thank you so much.
Chuck
You have the gift of a good teacher in making complicated concepts look simple. Regards from Singapore 8/8/2021.
Paul, well done ! This could be the beginning of a ," NEW TO ELECTRONICS CHANNEL " . Thanks for what you do :)
Thank you for your teaching
Your videos are very useful and simple enough to understand. Keep up the great work. PEACE!!!
As someone who hadn't thought about annodes and cathodes in 5+ years (GCSE chemistry) and is trying to learn electronics, this is so useful! especially as i don't understand your other vids as I have no clue what's being said, but I'm learning!!
Very nice explanation and demonstration Thank you. iwant to watch your next video,
Extremely useful as I’m a beginner. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and videos Artie 👍
Thanks Artie, I'm here if you have any questions. Feel free to email arduino0169@gmail.com
Thanks, my white led was shutting down my orange and green in a parallel circuit. I didn't know the advanced voltage was even a consideration with LEDs. awesome thanks.
Thank you. Very helpful.
I think like a lot of people, I have somehow managed to fudge my way through life without ever learning the true basics of LEDs... thank you for putting this right.
Very great video
Very well explained. I Build wooden model ships and I'm trying to learn how to add lighting.
man i just added this to my favorites. Excellent tutorial. Thank you
Thank you so much for this video, I've got an LED project I'm going to work on and gathering as much information as I can on it before I start and this was very good for setting some ground rules for me.
Thanks for anther great educational video.. there is always something to learn from you eg the internals of a diode. I know the basisc of electronics but i often dive into the beginners titled vids to see what knowledge pple pass on. Cheers from Down Under..
Best teacher
Many thanks
Great video, thanks, Paul! I think we all learned something, and some of us learned a lot!
Got to love LED's my favourite component
Watched the whole thing, great beginner video. I learned the names of the inner workings too.
thank you so much, total noob here and vids like this really help
Something I learned from AvE (I think) years ago that lets you instantly remember which lead is positive on LEDs or electrolytics: you can create a + sign with the longer lead by cutting the extra length off and turning it sideways.
Physical memory tricks like that have really helped me along the way. Another one I just remembered is how to remember which wire is live and which wire is neutral in US home wiring: put the two wires out in the sun, the black one gets hot and the white one stays neutral.
In the real world component leads are often trimmed so you cannot count on one being longer than the other. So you're better off looking inside the LED to see what polarity it is. There you just remember the bigger bit is the ground. I also equate the bigger bit to being the "land". I've heard of anvil and post but that has no meaning to me. Land on the other hand is earth or ground.
Today I learned the names of the l.e.d. 👍 plus the basics. Thank you. 😎
Great stuff! Love the "Basics" videos.
Thank you Sir! 👍😎
As a retired sparks I found this very informative many thanks
Fantastic video, very concise and informative. You answer one of the most basic questions for enthusiast looking for a simple answer regarding LED's. I subscribed and going to go through your other videos, little refresher never hurt anyone, even someone whos been into electronics for 30 some years.
Thank you!
i am trained electronics engineer but love review of basics and check details i might have misse3d new and refresh thanks
Nice explanation 👌
Sweet 👌 Always something to learn or refresh. Thanks Paul
Thank you
you are A genius man 😊
Perfect presentation Paul. 🌟
Thank you sir. Very educative.
Grate video Paul and thank you.
I never thumbs up, but I feel you earned it. Have a good day.
Good job Paul
Thanks alot
Good explaination and easy to learn
A good refresher is always nice to have. Yes I watched anyway... Lol
Thanks for the video!
LLAP
Keep up the good work
This is more informative then them other vids. Thank you
tell the truth, you were looking for an excuse to ope n that new box of LED's. ; )
"I love back to basic's," I think your the only one who do them! IN FACT IM SURE OF IT.
never stop doing them!!
i think you can guess what comes next "COOL VIDEO PAUL" : )
these are awesome. now do capacitors. thanks Paul
Thanks for the info, very helpful
Great vídeo 👏👏👏👏
So nice thanks sir
Great instruction, thanx!
Great video Mr. !! You killed 3 innocent LEDs for imparting your knowledge to the world ! I'm subscribing to your channel right away. Love from Singapore.
Great video Paul!!!!! as usual!!!! Keep up the good work!!!
Thanks! Will do!
I really like the whiteboard a nice touch. Just had my right hand operated on so probably won't comment much for a while. Thanks for the video!
You are always with me in spirit George! Heal up fast buddy!
Thank you my friend!
Great explanation! Thanks for making the vid and sharing your knowledge.
My 'UV' leds I harvested from a nail polish curing thing have a forward voltage of 7.3 volts. measured on a keithly dmm-6500 cause that seemed high lol
Thanks for the video. Keep it up. 😊
good video.
Nice basic video. Thanks
I love these basics videos
You are listing the voltages for each color, are we to assume the the amperage is @.20ma? If this is true why do your voltages not match the voltages listed on the 5mm case chart that you showed us? As well as looking at the manufacturer standards sheet, I noticed your voltages do not match. I like my LED intensities to match and voltage is important for that to happen.
good stuff thank you for sharing.
Always good to teach by example and include math!
I had a friend that hated LEDs. He tried to use them in his model railroad and they'd always blow up on him. I guess he didn't get the whole thing about limiting the current?
Thank You 😊
This was basic, This was cool, The way electronics should be
Next .. probably a good idea to teach them
connecting LED's in Series with calculations
then
Connecting LED's in Parallel with calculations
Maybe go into LED strips for them with IC so they understand how to test them
I recently had people asking me how to test LED strips that they thought were faulty but didn't realize it had a built in IC
I remember it by saying the first letter in the alphabetical order is positive.
A is before C this seems to work with lots of things.
I also tend to use a small battery 3235 to test.them before I soilder.them
Thank you, Uncle Paul
Blowman...in your demonstration...you've blown more discrete LEDs than l've been able to come across as a diy enthusiast, liking Texas Instruments, Forrest Mims Project books. You have a interesting and informative method. Don't take the "blowman" comment as a insult...it's just something we workers would say to each other in a battery plant. Congratulations...l subscribed!
Hi kindly advise how to produced a bright led like traffic lights . Green steady on. Yellow blinking and red blinking. Thanks
Thanks for this video. Could you do the next stage ,that is , lets say, running 4 of the same Led's in the circuit. Daisy chained.. against running the 4 in parallel?? I would find that very helpful. Best regards Don Codman
Interesting,. Looking to find a video to explain the resistor size needed to drive some 0.5W LEDs I just got off of allyexpress. Sadly only information I've been given on them is that they are 1/2Watt, and voltage. How do I convert Watts to amps
What is it inside the LED that glows? Is it the die? or the jump of current from the post to the anvil? of the bond wire?
great video, nice to be refreshed on ohms law .. may i ask a question .... if i was using 9 led's, in series .. do i need a resistor for each led? or does 1 resistor work the same and what wire needed for a 9v current .... any help would be appreciated , thanks.
8:11 Thank you so much for mentioning this! The 20mA rule-of-thumb seems to have deeply ingrained itself into the industry, even to those who should know better.
Here's a little rant I go off on about LED intensity:
TLDR:
Your LED current should be high enough to be visible in the final application, AND NO HIGHER. 20mA is a starting point but ask more questions. Does it need to be bright enough to wake up the operator when it lights? Will the operator need to see other features of your device next to a glaring LED? Does it need to be visible in full sunlight, or is it expected to live next to a home theatre? Could you find a different part that doesn't blind at 20mA?
20mA may be a nominal forward current, but it is not necessarily the best current for your design. When using generic blue LEDs in particular, 20mA will range from uncomfortable to blinding for most indoor applications. The LED datasheet should also have a graph mapping relative intensity to current. 1 is usually at 20mA, but sufficient brightness may come as low as 10 or even 5mA (keeping in mind that consistency between LEDs can become an issue at lower currents.)
20mA is a good starting point, but I recommend setting your circuit next to your monitor or television pointed at your face. At the same time, watch a video to see how irritating it might be--especially in a darkened room. Engineering is about more than hitting the high points of the datasheet; it's about meeting the design specifications and sometimes asking what the specification should be when someone forgot to consider it. Before blue LEDs were available, the industry apparently coalesced around 20mA, creating a standard, comfortable viewing intensity. You could design your indicators around this value without worrying whether it would be comfortably visible. When blue LEDs came along, it seems the industry decided the 20mA "standard" was more important than how blindingly (literally) efficient they are at that current.
Virtually every device with a blue LED that I've owned has been irritatingly bright. I have a tower fan with blue indicators that I've had to cover, so the light in my room at night doesn't keep me awake. I also owned a small audio mixer with a pair of blue 7-segment displays and a blue power LED. If the engineers put any thought into them at all, they must have assumed this mixer would only be used at outdoor festivals and the like. In a darkened theatre environment, they had to be covered up so you could see the controls around them, and your shadow wasn't burned into the back wall. Indeed, one might think marketing was involved and assumed that their device being visible from low-earth orbit would be free advertising. I have another mixer from the same brand with an orange power LED. It sits just below my primary monitor. It is just dim enough in my darkened room below a dark-themed screen that I'm not constantly distracted by thoughts of voiding the warranty to replace its resistor with a higher value.
I have a graphic eq with blue LEDs on each slider. I see spots after I adjust it.
What’s the difference between common cathode versus common anode LEDs please? I take it one works the way you show and the other is reverse of that? Am I correct in thinking this?
great video.ez to learn the way you do it. can you do or explain to me how this would work if youre powering a clock LED bulb under AC power 120V? i calculated a resistor like 11,450. is that possible. did I do it right?
I am such a beginner in electronics. Thanks for being so very clear. There's one thing I am just not able to get my brain around. I understand that it is understood that the conventional understanding is that electricity flows from positive to negative and not from negative to positive. So hooking up an LED or diode would then be from negative to positive in-order for the actual current to flow from negative to positive but that is not the way you were hooking up your diode. Please can you once and for all clarify this misconception for us. Thanks. Oh, when you say "forward voltage". Does this mean that this is the minimum voltage that the LED will light up? Or is this the loss of voltage as the current goes across the LED? Thank again for your video post.
Love the vids
Brilliant
How do they make the Tricolor LED's forward voltage work?
Great stuff
cool but can you give me the link to where to find those tiny leds
Was trained on conventional current flow. Will stay with that.
Oops! I @7:22 I think you meant to say current is the rate of charge (i.e. Coulombs/second). The "electrical push" is, of course, voltage. Thank you for the video. Most instructions I've seen just say to add a current limiting resistor, but don't mention why, or how to calculate the value.
I was installing a "DeJitter" mod on a 1chip Super NES "junior" the other day (SNS-101) and someone had already installed an LED that was directly wired to 5v and ground... no resistor. Someone drilled a tiny