The Blues for LEDs

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Posted by ryuzaki0 on Sunday April 11, 2004 @01:30AM from the if-thats-your-biggest-problem-you're-doing-allright dept.

Corey Burger writes "Seems somebody rolled out of bed on the wrong side today. The Globe and Mail's Ian Johnson delivers up a rant about the ubiquity of the new blue LEDs."

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Re:the LEDs are ok... by jhtrih · 2004-04-11 02:23 · Score: 4, Informative

"Ricer" refers to the "moding" of "import" cars for looks and zero performance gain. I believe there are be far more derogatory words one could use to insult on of asian decent.

From the Urban Dictionary:
Usually some 17-21 year old male with heavily modified "externals", "posing" in some Honda (typically a civic), giving a bad name to those real tuners who drive fast Hondas!
Re:Why by ejaw5 · 2004-04-11 02:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Even better:

1. Disassemble device
2. Locate offending LED
3. Apply heat (solder iron) and remove LED
4. If so desired, replace it with an LED of different color using the solder iron and resin.
5. Reassemble device

--

$cat /dev/random > Sig
Paint by nurb432 · 2004-04-11 02:48 · Score: 4, Informative

Paint works well too...

Even a sharpie marker..

Choose a blue color and you can still have your light, at a reduced amount of luminosity..

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:This line got me... by eyeye · 2004-04-11 03:07 · Score: 4, Informative

There really are alarms like that, I had a brief stay at a nuclear plant that beeped constantly.

The theory is if an alarm fails it might not go off, but if it beeps constantly then you will notice if it fails.

--
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
Re:Why by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-11 04:02 · Score: 5, Informative

4a. Replace corresponding series resistor.

Blue LEDs typically have a forward voltage greater than standard red/green/yellow ones. If you don't use a correctly-calculated series resistor, a lower voltage LED will receive more current and become a super-high-tech Black LED shortly after powerup.
Go to Sam's Club by Sycraft-fu · 2004-04-11 04:25 · Score: 4, Informative

They sell pants under their own brand called Member's Mark. They are nice, plain, dark blue jeans. They are also well made and like $13/pair.
Re:Why by InfiniteWisdom · 2004-04-11 04:50 · Score: 4, Informative

4. If so desired, replace it with an LED of different color using the solder iron and resin.

And watch your new LED smoulder after a while. Blue LEDs trigger at 3.2 volts as compared to 0.7 volts for red and green LEDs. You also need to place a larger resistance in series with it, which is at best hardto do on a PCB that wasn't designed for it.

I vague recall seeing LEDs with curren-limiting resistances built in though somewhere, so make sure you use one of those.
The color is fine. Brightness is the problem by Animats · 2004-04-11 05:03 · Score: 4, Informative
On the annoyance front, there was a fad about a year ago for really bright power-on indicators. I have a Shuttle PC and a DVD player that will light up a dark room with their blue power-on LEDs. That's excessive.
The color, though, is correct. The standard NEMA rules for indicator colors, used on industrial gear for decades, are
- GREEN Normal status.
- AMBER Abnormal status. Operator should be aware that an amber lamp is lit.
- RED Trouble status. Operator should take action to make the red light go out.
- BLUE or WHITE On, or other non-specific meaning.
So blue and white are actually the default colors. Red should be used only for trouble indicators. We're still getting over the cheap red LED glut of the 1980s, when everything had red LEDs.
Anything that rackmounts should follow these rules. It's not only annoying, but a headache, to have red lights for non-trouble conditions in a rack of equipment. IBM always has.