I'd definitely choose an LED. Reducing the power consumption is all about the on time. If you set up the limiting resistor to provide ~20ma (yes a huge amount for a battery device) but only have the LED on half the time, instantly your power consumption is cut in half. Yes that's still to much, but consider a much more extreme example -- 10ms every 2sec, that drops your average current to 0.1ma. Quite acceptable for most battery powered devices. You can stretch this further, but there is a minimum on time that is reasonably viewable, as well as a max off time before it annoys users. -Denny ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Pearson" To: Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 10:48 AM Subject: [EE] low power on/off indicators I need to include an on/off indicator to my project. It is battery operated so it needs to be low power consumption. Some ideas I had were an led that blinked every second or so. Or maybe something that beeped or clicked every few seconds. This is an industrial environment. Any ideas or thoughts? Thanks John -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu