Hello everyone, I recently built a small distribution board to distribute 5V to multiple components for use in a robotics project. I made each output switchable with an individual switch and an LED to indicate the current state. When I went to test it using a lab power supply I noticed that the LEDs would start flickering weirdly when I turned them off and on again.
As it turns out, the LEDs, which I found in my dads old parts in a bag labeled TLBO 5410, are apparently blinking LEDs. I found a datasheet for TLBR5410 LEDs which seem pretty much identical to what I have accidentally used.
Apparently these LEDs are made to operate directly from a 5V supply without an additional current limiting resistor (it is already built in) and are made to continuously blink at a frequency of 3Hz.
Because I thought I was using standard LEDs I added a series resistor causing them to behave weirdly due to low voltage. For comparison, this is how they are supposed to act: https://imgur.com/a/fXlcEDs
Lol, awesome. An “entertaining mistake”.
Though I’m sure at the time there was a little annoyance.
Neat, thanks for the post, a great reminder to verify stuff.