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LED's; How bright is too bright?

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somunny:
When I bought the LED's to light the buttlons on my current cabinet, I thought "no such thing as TOO bright".  So I picked up some 8000mcd bulbs. 

Then I saw a friend's LED flashlight.  I don't know what the rating was on the LED's but you couldn't look directly at if you valued your retinas.

I have not had a chance to wire them up yet but I'm just curious if anyone else has used LED's around this same rating and could share their thoughts on the matter.  I suppose I could experiment with different resistors and get it dimmed down.  Just wondering what kind of light show I'm in for...

Steve

juggle50:
Well I'm still experimenting with this stuff too.  From what I understand, mcds are not the only indicator of brightness.  According to Joymonkey and Randy Luminous flux is an important factor when lighting buttons which is a calcutlated by both mcds and beam angle.   They talk about it more in this thread http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=49222.0

Whether it's too bright or not depends on what you are lighting.  I used red 8000mcd leds with a 30 degree beam angle to light up my player one and two buttons.  They work great because the hard plastic of the button really defuses the light and you can see them well even during to day.

Now if you stick those in the bottom of a happs translucent and they have a 15 degree viewing angle they will create a spotlight effect and really blind you.

Like I said, I'm not the expert but I hope that helps a little.

somunny:
Thanks for the link.  Lots of good info there.

The LEDs are 45 degree so hopefully they should disperse the light enough.  I suppose the bulbs in the flashlight I saw had a pretty narrow dispersion angle.  Makes sense.

Steve

ShinAce:
3000 mcd or more will pretty much 'blind' you when looked at from directly on top....

whammoed:
You can always use a higher ohm resistor if they are too bright.  You can make them as dim as you want with the right resistor.

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