After reading this headline, someone might ask, “Why?” Yes, if you simply plug the LED into a power outlet, even turning it on in a certain pattern, it does not have practical value, it will not bring any useful information.

But if you connect the same LED in parallel with a heating element controlled by a temperature regulator, you can visually control the operation of the entire device. Sometimes this indication allows you to get rid of many small problems and troubles.

In the light of what has already been said about the inclusion of LEDs in previous articles, the task seems trivial: just put the limiting resistor of the desired value, and the issue is resolved. But all this is good if you feed the LED with a rectified constant voltage: as they connected the LED in the forward direction, it remained ...

In some cases, for example, in flashlights or home lighting fixtures, it becomes necessary to adjust the brightness of the glow. It would seem that it’s easier: just change the current through the LED, increasing or decreasing the resistance of the limiting resistor. But in this case, a significant part of the energy will be spent on the limiting resistor, which is completely unacceptable with autonomous power supply from batteries or accumulators.

In addition, the color of the LEDs will change: for example, white when the current is lower than the nominal (for most LEDs 20mA) will have a slightly greenish tint. Such a color change in some cases is completely useless.

Imagine that these LEDs illuminate the screen of a TV or computer monitor. In these cases, PWM control is applied (pulse width) ...

You can make an excellent LED spotlight with your own hands, spending only 257 rubles on the filling! Even if you are not familiar with electronics and in life you have not soldered a single printed circuit board with radio components!

This spotlight can be successfully used for landscape illumination of a summer cottage, for accented illumination of a house, for illumination of an object at a distance of 20 - 30 m when using outdoor surveillance cameras ... And much more for what!

But, most importantly, your spotlight will consume only 6 watts of electric power with a stable light output when powered in the voltage range 85 - 256 Volts! Let's get down to business. We really liked the Kreonix STD-JCDR-6W-GU10-COB / WW LED lamp, developed by Russian engineers and manufactured by Kreonix. We tested it and were very pleased with the high brightness of the LED ...

Everyone is familiar with LEDs now: LED lights, LED lamps, ribbons, and much more. Thanks to the efforts of the developers, absolutely exotic devices appeared, for example, a nozzle on a water tap. Outwardly, it is a transparent plastic cylinder: cool water poured in - inside the nozzle a blue LED lights up, it became warmer - it turned yellow, and even if the water is too hot, the nozzle turns red. The content of the internal filling is unknown, but the fact that LEDs are used as emitting elements is obvious.

The first LED was developed at the University of Illinois back in 1962. In 1990, bright, and later superbright LEDs were born. The LED itself is very similar to a conventional rectifier diode, only when a direct current passes through it, the semiconductor crystal begins to glow ...

Everyone is familiar with LEDs now.Without them, modern technology is simply unthinkable. These are LED lights and lamps, an indication of the operating modes of various household appliances, the illumination of screens of computer monitors, televisions, and many other things that you can’t even remember right away. All of these devices contain LEDs in the visible radiation range of various colors: red, green, blue (RGB), yellow, white. Modern technology allows you to get almost any color.

In addition to LEDs in the visible range, there are LEDs for infrared and ultraviolet light. The main field of application of such LEDs is automation and control devices. It is enough to recall the remote control of various household appliances. If the first remote control models were used exclusively for controlling TVs, now they are used to control wall heaters, air conditioners ...

The topic of LED lighting is, recently, one of the most popular. In most cases, on the Internet, among home-made light sources, I had to meet lamps made from separate LEDs and installed in the body of a faulty energy-saving lamp along with a power supply.

This arrangement allows the use of an LED lamp instead of a conventional incandescent lamp without any alteration of the lamp. Some disadvantage of this design is to recognize the relative complexity of manufacturing a printed circuit board, which usually has the shape of a circle.

However, at the present time, LED strips have become very popular. But, as a rule, they are used mainly for decorative lighting and very rarely - as lighting. However, if not for main lighting, then for local illumination of certain areas ...

Given the high popularity of LED light sources both among buyers and sellers, it is worthwhile to dwell in more detail on what parameters are used to characterize the consumer properties of such lamps, which, in fact, should be considered when buying.

First of all, any lamp, including LED, is characterized by the amount of power consumption (watts). Typically, the power of LED lamps for domestic purposes ranges from 1 to 10 watts, although there are much more powerful sources for street lighting - 100 watts or more. Strictly speaking, the power consumption characterizes only the rate of energy consumption from the network, and in order to understand how much the lamp shines, you should ask the seller about the amount of light output. The luminous flux is measured in lumens and most fully characterizes the light source ...

The article talks about the design of LED lamps. Several schemes of different complexity are considered and recommendations are given for the independent manufacture of LED light sources connected to a 220 V network.

As a result of the global crisis, the problem of energy conservation has become even more urgent throughout the world. In this regard, from September 1, 2009, in 27 EU countries, the sale of incandescent lamps with a capacity of 100 or more watts has already been banned. And already in 2011 in Europe, it is planned to introduce an embargo on the sale of the most popular 60-watt light bulbs for buyers. By the end of 2012, a complete rejection of incandescent lamps is planned.

The U.S. Congress passed a law on the rejection of incandescent lamps in 2013. According to these laws, residents of the European Union and the United States will completely switch to energy-saving light sources - fluorescent and LED lamps ...