RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion
Choosing LED's
William Brillinger:
Thanks Everybody.
Time to order some LED's.
William Brillinger:
--- Quote ---I use SMD resistors, 1K ohm 1/4 watt. I'll see if I find the exact ones I bought from Digikey. I bought a roll of 100 or so....it'll last me forever.
--- End quote ---
Kevin, do you have a product number for these?
Alan:
Digikey that Kevin mentions is a good electronics house however they are generally one of the most expensive. For those looking to source electronics parts you may also want to look at the following. I have dealt with every one and they are all reputable.
Allied Electronics: http://www.alliedelec.com/
Arrow: http://www.arrow.com/
Mouser: http://www.mouser.com/
Online Components: http://www.onlinecomponents.com
Verical: http://www.verical.com
And don't discount eBay from China. The vast majority of my electronics inventory came through eBay from China vendors. In the electronics business there is not good, better, best but rather tight spec, loose spec. It is called "binning". Same assembly line, components that are well within spec go in one bin while components that drift from spec go in another. The domestic electronic houses sell tight spec as their customers are primarily manufacturers of devices where in spec is really important. Most of the Ebay China stuff is loose spec. However, for hobbyist use such as ours loose spec is just dandy. You may have to wait 30 days for delivery but there is often amazing savings.
With respect to LEDs, binning tight spec means all LEDs of that part number will be exactly the same color and brightness. Binning loose spec means there may be slight variation. Other than by lining them up side-by-side I challenge you to see the difference. IMHO buying tight spec for hobbyist use is a waste of your money.
KPack:
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=RMCF1206JT1K00CT-ND
I spent $1.00 for 100 of these. They are small and you can fit them anywhere. With some installs you may need to get creative on where to put things. On my recent Scaletrains SD40-2 install, I CA'd one of them to the side of the my front speaker and ran the wire around to it to avoid bringing the wire over the top where space was scarce.
Keep in mind that each LED will use a resistor on the output wire. The blue common has no resistor. For the Evan Designs LEDs, the green wire is the one you solder to the resistor, the red wire is what connects to the common blue.
Alan, thanks for the links to other vendors. I'll have to go check them out.
-Kevin
Alan:
--- Quote ---I spent $1.00 for 100 of these.
--- End quote ---
Kevin, I did not mean to imply you paid too much by shopping at Digikey. Just wanted to point out there other suppliers some of which may be less expensive than Digikey. My implied point was more directed at folks that buy electronics components such as LEDs from traditional hobby suppliers (Bill referencing Evans). Doing so is a guarantee you will pay through the nose.
I couldn't help but do a quick eBay search. The first listing that appeared has resistors priced at $0.003 each. That's 30 cents for 100. Free shipping! If you can use 3400 of them they can be had for $0.0017 each or 17 cents for 100. And that my friends is why I like eBay China for electronics pieces.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version