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Project Notes

#752 LED Breadboard Modules

Testing some 8x Red LED common-cathode modules, making breadboarding with LEDs much more fun!

Build

Notes

How often do you find yourself wiring up a series of LEDs on a breadboard, along with current limiting resistors? I’d thought about making a simple module, but of course the job has already been done: I found some suitable units on aliexpress:

  • choice of red and blue LEDs
  • choice of common-cathode and common-anode configurations
  • fitted with 2kΩ current limiting resistors for each LED, allowing a voltage range of 3-24V
  • 8 LEDs
  • 9 pins, in-line at 2.54mm pitch (breadboard compatible)

Perhaps the only improvement I can think of would be to make a version with a pin configuration that could be plugged directly into an Arduino.

modules

Circuit Design

As a test, I’ll just blink them with a 555 timer at around 0.69 Hz.

I have the common-cathode module, so COM goes to ground, and a positive signal is required on the LED input.

bb

schematic

bb_build

Credits and References

About LEAP#752 LED555 TimerBreadboard Bling

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

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About LEAP

LEAP is my personal collection of electronics projects - usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting.

Projects are often inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the many great electronics podcasts and YouTube channels. Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know or send a pull-request.

NOTE: For a while I included various scale modelling projects here too, but I've now split them off into a new repository: check out LittleModelArt if you are looking for these projects.

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