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Unread 24-01-2004, 20:12
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I am JVN! (John von Neumann)
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Re: Making a beacon indicator LED burn its brightest without burning out

Quote:
Did you know that the infrared LEDs produce visible light when they have too much current?

I accidentally shorted one of the resistors while testing with a multimeter and fried one of our LEDs.
As a matter of fact, I did know that. Wanna know how? One of our students hooked up the IR LED to a variable voltage supply to test it (we had a "magic mirror" IR detector). The conversation went about like this:

Me: You're not applying the full voltage are you?
Him: No.
(Pause. I begin to see the LED light up.)
Me: You probably don't want to add any more voltage, that doesn't look good ...
(BOOM! The LED exploded, shooting right past my face.)

Needless to say, I wasn't too happy