orange leds

thrasher_565 · November 6, 2017

so i have a few quetions about orange led's. im looking for a 5mm but i want a bright one. i looked on ebay and the specs seem to range form 3v all the way up to 14v. my test i did with the led i had (no idea what i had) was with a 3v button battery. also dose flat top make a difference? im going to be sending it down a 1/2 water cooling tube so wide angel is not need. also is there such thing as rgb 3mm led the ones with 4 leads? im guessing 5mm rgb with 4 leads will be less bright as one that is just orange.

mariushm · November 6, 2017

The brightness depends on the power of the led (how much current it can use) and the view angle of the led. A led that has a 120 degree view angle will spread the light all around and will look dimmer, while a 30-45 degree view angle led will be more like a laser pointer focusing the light forward and therefore appearing brighter.

Leds that need more than around 3v to turn on and produce light will typically be made out of multiple individual led diodes connected in series, and sometimes hidden under a layer of phosphor which produces the warm white or whatever color the led is supposed to be. So your 14v led was probably made out of 5 individual leds in series, each requiring around 2.8v or more to turn on.

Your test with a 3v button battery is flawed, because these kinds of batteries have a high internal resistance - they can't output a lot of current. For example, your led may be happy to consume 20mA of current, but the button battery may only be able to output 10 mA continuously.

I have no idea where you're physically located. That would help suggest what to buy and from where.

There are distributors or electronic components with good reputation which have huge inventories of leds and let you filter by view angle, but how much light they can produce at the advertised current (for example a led that produces 200 mCd of light at 3v and 20mA will be better than one making 180mCd at 2.8v and 25mA but both may be worse than one making 1000 mCd at 3v 100mA but at the same time this last one would be useless to you if your battery can't give it 100mA of current)

If you're in US, check out Digikey.com , Mouser.com , Newark.com

If you're in Europe, check out Farnell.com (same company as newark.com above) , RS Components (they have various websites branching from there for various countries in Europe) , TME.eu ... Mouser.com also sends stuff to Europe

For example on Digikey, you have leds in two categories....

LED Indication , which is for low power leds like you have on keyboard, power on and hdd leds on case etc but there's some high brightness (for the size) as well : https://www.digikey.com/products/en/optoelectronics/led-indication-discrete/105

LED lightning (color) , which is for higher brightness , super bright and high power leds but note they often have lens and they're optimized for wide angles (70 degrees or more) :

(there's also some other categories, for led lightning with white leds etc : https://www.digikey.com/products/en/optoelectronics/led-lighting-color/125

This for example would be quite bright and has very narrow angle ( 600nm, 5mm, 15 degrees, 300mCd at 1.9v 20mA) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/broadcom-limited/HLMP-C415/516-1351-ND/637612

If you don't mind slightly red tint (620nm - 640nm) and wider angle (60 degree), this one can make a lot more light, 1500mCd : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/kingbright/WP7083SEDK-J3/754-2134-ND/7318901

In the high brightness category, the closest to your needs (but quite wide angle) would be this : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cree-inc/XRCRDO-L1-0000-00M01/XRCRDO-L1-0000-00M01CT-ND/5725097

it's a red-orange led (615nm , see below on the graph what color that would be) and needs 2.2v and up to 350mA to be super bright, but it's 90 degree wide angle ... oh, and 350mA would only be possible if you put it on some circuit board or something to take away the heat, just with 2 wires soldered to it, maybe it can do 30-50mA without burning up

You can combine these high brightness leds in theory with led light pipes which can concentrate the light into a narrow-er angle, or you can put a lens above the led to achieve the same thing

thrasher_565 · November 6, 2017

17 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The brightness depends on the power of the led (how much current it can use) and the view angle of the led. A led that has a 120 degree view angle will spread the light all around and will look dimmer, while a 30-45 degree view angle led will be more like a laser pointer focusing the light forward and therefore appearing brighter.

Leds that need more than around 3v to turn on and produce light will typically be made out of multiple individual led diodes connected in series, and sometimes hidden under a layer of phosphor which produces the warm white or whatever color the led is supposed to be. So your 14v led was probably made out of 5 individual leds in series, each requiring around 2.8v or more to turn on.

Your test with a 3v button battery is flawed, because these kinds of batteries have a high internal resistance - they can't output a lot of current. For example, your led may be happy to consume 20mA of current, but the button battery may only be able to output 10 mA continuously.

I have no idea where you're physically located. That would help suggest what to buy and from where.

There are distributors or electronic components with good reputation which have huge inventories of leds and let you filter by view angle, but how much light they can produce at the advertised current (for example a led that produces 200 mCd of light at 3v and 20mA will be better than one making 180mCd at 2.8v and 25mA but both may be worse than one making 1000 mCd at 3v 100mA but at the same time this last one would be useless to you if your battery can't give it 100mA of current)

If you're in US, check out Digikey.com , Mouser.com , Newark.com

If you're in Europe, check out Farnell.com (same company as newark.com above) , RS Components (they have various websites branching from there for various countries in Europe) , TME.eu ... Mouser.com also sends stuff to Europe

For example on Digikey, you have leds in two categories....

LED Indication , which is for low power leds like you have on keyboard, power on and hdd leds on case etc but there's some high brightness (for the size) as well : https://www.digikey.com/products/en/optoelectronics/led-indication-discrete/105

LED lightning (color) , which is for higher brightness , super bright and high power leds but note they often have lens and they're optimized for wide angles (70 degrees or more) :

(there's also some other categories, for led lightning with white leds etc : https://www.digikey.com/products/en/optoelectronics/led-lighting-color/125

This for example would be quite bright and has very narrow angle ( 600nm, 5mm, 15 degrees, 300mCd at 1.9v 20mA) : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/broadcom-limited/HLMP-C415/516-1351-ND/637612

If you don't mind slightly red tint (620nm - 640nm) and wider angle (60 degree), this one can make a lot more light, 1500mCd : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/kingbright/WP7083SEDK-J3/754-2134-ND/7318901

In the high brightness category, the closest to your needs (but quite wide angle) would be this : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cree-inc/XRCRDO-L1-0000-00M01/XRCRDO-L1-0000-00M01CT-ND/5725097

it's a red-orange led (615nm , see below on the graph what color that would be) and needs 2.2v and up to 350mA to be super bright, but it's 90 degree wide angle ... oh, and 350mA would only be possible if you put it on some circuit board or something to take away the heat, just with 2 wires soldered to it, maybe it can do 30-50mA without burning up

You can combine these high brightness leds in theory with led light pipes which can concentrate the light into a narrow-er angle, or you can put a lens above the led to achieve the same thing

thx for the info this is what im trying to do

http://

it looks like an electronics store would be better and more accret on the specs. i think there is one local i can look in to as i have other questions about other parts.

its for a pc im building and it has a weird size thread on the back. sothis is going to be to empty the filter out and to use an led stopper ill need a t but this puts the led farther away instead of just using an led stop but then i cant use it as a drain. as for the pc power it has w/e power it need's and up to 12v. there is also 5v and i think a 7v mod.