CMiYC Labs, Inc.

Note… this page has moved to:  http://www.cmiyc.com/tutorials/led-basics/

Nearly ever consumer device makes use of the Light Emitting Diode (LED). This highly versitle device offers an easy way to add an indicator to any project, while drawing a relatively small amount of current. Once their operation is understood, adding them to any project is a simple task. This is an simplified explanation of how a LED works and how to select a current limiting resistor. The information here is enough to use LEDs in a project, but is not intended to be a through explanation.

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TLC5940NT Painter Board

This screen shot is an all-layer view of my TLC5940 painter board.  The 1st draft featured two TLC5940s, but I decided it made the board too large.  Instead, I wanted the ability to mount the painter boards around the LED’s shadow box.  This should make routing all the wires much easier.

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Quick schematic in gschem running on OS X.

In an attempt to find a free set of schematic and PCB tools for hobby work, I looked back at gEDA. The last time I used it was when the project first started, years and years ago. I was happy to see that OS X had a set of fink packages for the gEDA suite. After figuring out how to get X11 in Leopard (since I didn’t include it when I installed 10.5) and install fink, getting gEDA going was a snap.  The user jluciani in the Arduino forums has provided some free pcb footprints he has used from previous projects.

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