There's nothing like the smell of burning LEDs in the morning... At my University, my friends and I were selling parts kits for the Microelectronics 1 course. One particularly brilliant group came by, bought their kit, and proceeded to plug their only red LED directly into mains. They were slightly more surprised at the explosion than they were at the revelation that we wouldn't replace the LED for free. Unfortunately, this gave my friends and I an idea, and all the dead equipment we can find was raided for various types of LEDs. Though we stayed away from mains, an interesting combination of the power supply for my PIC programmer and a pair of 9V batteries were combined to form what we called "13.5 Volt Theatre". We went on to find that white and blue LEDs exploded the best (clear epoxy everywhere, and the smell doesn't dissipate for days), but that rectangular LEDs tend to fail the most dramatically - shooting flame and sparks out the sides for a few seconds. Most LEDs tended to get quite bright, then quite dim, then quite smelly & broken. What can I say - it was more fun that studying Economics :) On 1/6/06, Juan Cubillo wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Olin Lathrop" > To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." > Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 11:36 AM > Subject: Re: [EE] stupid (learning) mistakes > > > > Mario Mendes Jr. wrote: > > > Virtually the same story from me, but instead of an electromagnet, I > > > used a small dc motor I had ripped out of a toy =3D) > > > > I tried it with a neon bulb, although I had a pretty good idea what wou= ld > > happen and stood away by the fuse box. > > > > In college we sacrificed a telephone mouthpiece in the same way. We kn= ew > it > > would go poof, but it was more spectacular than I had expected. A real= ly > > nice orange flame shot out about 3 feet > > Let=B4s keep adding to the list: > > I opened a printer and found some SMD leds. I "touched" them with a 2xAA > battery pack I had and it turned on. > - "Wow, it lights!" > Then, I decided to use a 24V backup battery from an old house alarm... > The led made a REALLY bright flash that left a nice white spot in my visi= on > for about 5 minutes. Then, instantly, it burned and a string of white smo= ke > went up in my room. > That was how my interest in electronics got started... > Juan Cubillo > > 20B.CC070470-- > > 182A0CB0-- > > BR>Oficina =3D > Pital > > ------=3D_NextPart_000_01C0_01C611D2.2A67FC20-- > > > 22_01C6114F.973F3B70-- > > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- -Randy Glenn Computer Eng. and Mgt. Year IV, McMaster University Industry Liason, McMaster IEEE Student Branch randy.glenn-at-gmail.com - glennrb-at-mcmaster.ca randy.glenn-at-computer.org - randy_glenn-at-ieee.org http://www.randyglenn.ca -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist