Trying It Out

58 Hacking Electronics

Figure 4-4 An LED’s schematic

Trying It Out

You might like to try out your LEDs and get them lit up on the breadboard. So, using Figures 4-4 and 4-5 as a guide, wire up your breadboard. Remember that the longer lead of the LED is normally the anode (positive) and thus should be to the left of the breadboard.

An important point to notice here is that each LED has its own series resistor. It is tempting to use one lower value current limiting resistor and put the LEDs in parallel, but don’t do this. If you do, the LED with the lowest VF will hog all the current and probably burn out, at which point the LED with the next lowest VF will do the same, until all the LEDs are dead.

Figure 4-5 An LED breadboard layout