Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
Contributors:
Nick Poole, 
bboyho
Nick Poole, bboyho Resources and Going Further
You've made it! You know, like, almost everything... about LEDs. Now go forth and put LEDs on whatever you please! And now... a dramatic reenactment of an LED without a current limiting resistor being over powered and burning itself out:
Yeah... it's not spectacular.
If you'd like to learn more about some LED related topics, visit these other tutorials:
Light
Light is a useful tool for the electrical engineer. Understanding how light relates to electronics is a fundamental skill for many projects.
IR Communication
This tutorial explains how common infrared (IR) communication works, as well as shows you how to set up a simple IR transmitter and receiver with an Arduino.
Das Blinken Top Hat
A top hat decked out with LED strips makes for a heck of a wedding gift.
How LEDs are Made
We take a tour of a LED manufacturer and learn how PTH 5mm LEDs are made for SparkFun.
BadgerHack: Gaming Add-On Kit
Make a Breakout clone with the BadgerHack Gaming Add-On Kit.
Non-Addressable RGB LED Strip Hookup Guide
Add color to your projects with non-addressable LED strips! These are perfect if you want to control and power the entire strip with one color for your props, car, fish tank, room, wall, or perhaps under cabinet lighting in your home.
AVR-Based Serial Enabled LCDs Hookup Guide
The AVR-based Qwiic Serial Enabled LCDs are a simple and cost effective solution to include in your project. These screens are based on the HD44780 controller, and include ATmega328P with an Arduino compatible bootloader. They accept control commands via Serial, SPI and I2C (via PTH headers or Qwiic connector). In this tutorial, we will show examples of a simple setup and go through each communication option.
LumiDrive Hookup Guide
The LumiDrive LED Driver is SparkFun’s foray into all things Python on micro-controllers. With the SparkFun LumiDrive you will be able to control and personalize a whole strand of APA102s directly from the board itself.
Interested in learning more about LEDs?
See our LED page for everything you need to know to start using these components in your project.
Or check out some of these related blog posts: