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I need to find a 7VAC LED(?)
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jasonbar:

--- Quote from: efjayel on May 01, 2008, 03:00:42 am ---I still doubt its an LED. It will light up like the rest of you said but LEDs where not originally meant to be used on AC Voltages. AC will break down the component LED a lot quicker than DC voltage. So it's life span would be greatly reduced. So unless this was bad engineering, then perhaps they've come out with diodes that where made for AC.
 :dunno

Hey Jasonbar, how about a good close up pic of this LED?

--- End quote ---

Hey, Efjayel-

Do you know how hard it is to take a good pic of an LED w/ an average point 'n' click digital camera?  :]  Not easy!  Well, just for you, my friend, I fished through 2 trash cans before I found the LED (in the bottom of the yuckier of the 2 trashcans).  I'm 99% sure that this is the LED in question and not the *other* one whose leg snapped off last night...grr...

Well, here are the 3 best pics I got.  I shrunk them a bit & messed w/ brightness & contrast to try to make the anode & cathode show a bit better.  It really really looks like an LED to me.  I can see that the 2 wire leads end in 2 pieces inside the LED, one shaped a bit like a "7" & the other more like an "i".  The red plastic package looks *just* like an LED, even with a small flat on the flange, aligned w/ 1 of the leads (indicating the negative lead).

Check it out.


Although this discussion has been cool & educational, I've decided to go w/ my plan B & use a crazy "disco" LED that cycles through all sorts of colors with all sort of frequencies & run it off my MAME PC's 5V disk drive power lines.  Now, where's the smiley for ducking flying objects chucked at me?  Oh, this is close enough:   :lame:

Thanks,
-Jason

fjl:
Hmmm, that certainly looks like an LED. If I where you I would test it. Even though one of the legs broke off, I'm sure you can still make contact with the metal using a multimeter. I'd test it to see if it reads like a Diode then I'd put both DC and AC voltage through it to see how it reacts. Maybe when it broke, you accidently did something to the circuit board that caused it to output AC voltage instead of DC.
jasonbar:
Howdy-

Boy, you're really getting into this discussion, Efjayel!  :)

I've got my workaround solution.  I'm going to let this sleeping dog...errr, LED lie.  I did try getting a probe onto the broken leg but couldn't seem to make contact.  When I broke the leg, the power strip was off, so I don't think I've damaged the circuit inside the power strip (I'm not going to open it up to check--it's already all mounted & captured & secured...).

Tell ya what, though.  If you send me your mailing address, I'll be happy to drop it in the mail (provided I can dig it out of the trash again...) & you can run all the experiments you want on it.  :)


Thanks,
-Jason
whammoed:
I'm not sure why it would be hard to believe they would use AC to power the LED.  It takes fewer components to use AC...fewer components=cheaper...almost everything is made as cheaply as possible.
Fozzy The Bear:

--- Quote from: whammoed on May 02, 2008, 04:10:26 pm ---I'm not sure why it would be hard to believe they would use AC to power the LED.  It takes fewer components to use AC...fewer components=cheaper...almost everything is made as cheaply as possible.

--- End quote ---

I'd be more convinced if I thought he had a clue what he was talking about and deferred to people with actual experience of this stuff. I'm doing my best to be polite here.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
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