{"id":5648,"date":"2013-01-04T13:12:36","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T21:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=5648"},"modified":"2013-01-28T23:07:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T07:07:16","slug":"2013-01-04-led-abuser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=5648","title":{"rendered":"2013-01-04 LED Abuser"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Not me, the beasty I made is the LED abuser.\u00a0 Well, maybe me, too.\u00a0 See the photo.\u00a0 I had this high voltage transformer I got a few years ago, and I hooked up a power transistor (2SC2334) to the center tapped winding just like a Joule Thief.\u00a0 The resistor is 180 ohms wire wound.\u00a0 It draws 1.2 amps at about 4V (the power supply won’t go higher, it current limits a t 1.2A max).\u00a0 As can be seen it puts out a nice 1\/4″ (6mm) arc.\u00a0 It makes some ozone smell, too.<\/p>\n

I got a bag of Agilent (HP) HLMP-3401 yellow (amber) LEDs from Goldmine-elec.com for cheap, and I thought that being they’re a brand name, they would put out a decent amount of light.\u00a0 Well, they don’t, they’re only bright enough for indicators (See note below).\u00a0 They make okay light sensors, though.\u00a0 So I thought that`since I had so many, I would try to burn one out with my LED abuser \/ arc maker.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I held the LED with a pair of well insulated long nose pliers and put it up to the arc, and watched as the arc jumped between the LED leads.\u00a0 The LED was slightly flickering, so I turned it around and let the arc go through it in the opposite direction.\u00a0 COOL!\u00a0 I now have a fried LED!<\/p>\n

But why was it flickering as the arc was going through it?\u00a0 I connected it up to the power supply and…\u00a0 It lit up, just like normal.\u00a0 Huh??\u00a0 It should have been fried by now!\u00a0 So I repeated the arcing and then tested the LED on the PS and it lit up, just like normal!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Weird!\u00a0 I have an LED that can handle several tens of thousands of volts without even a bit of damage.\u00a0 It has withstood the ultimate test!\u00a0 Like Dr. Frankenstein said, “It’s ALIVE!\u00a0 ALIVE!”<\/p>\n

…But I probably shouldn’t put this one back in the bag with the rest…<\/p>\n

Back to zapping…<\/p>\n

Note: I found another use for these amber LEDs.\u00a0 They work good for protecting the base to emitter junction against excessive voltage.\u00a0 I soldered two of them in series and put them between the base and emitter of a JT transistor, with the cathode connected to the base.\u00a0 When the base voltage gets to negative\u00a0 5 or 6 volts, the LEDs light up and absorb the excess voltage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not me, the beasty I made is the LED abuser.\u00a0 Well, maybe me, too.\u00a0 See the photo.\u00a0 I had this high voltage transformer I got a few years ago, and I hooked up a power transistor (2SC2334) to the center tapped winding just like a Joule Thief.\u00a0 The resistor is 180 ohms wire wound.\u00a0 It <\/p>\n

(Read More…)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-joule-thief-smps-dc-dc","category-led","category-leds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5648"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5995,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5648\/revisions\/5995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}