The Hackaday 2025 Component Abuse Challenge is all about abusing electronic components in the service of making them do things they were never intended to. It’s not the 2025 Food Abuse Challenge, so ...

What do you get for the geek who has everything and likes LEDs? A tricked-out LED tester, naturally. [Dave Cook]’s deluxe model sports an LCD screen and two adjustable values: desired current and ...

The BTS256-LED Tester measures luminous flux, illuminance, color quantities and spectra of individual LEDs and traditional light sources. Larger size light sources can be measured by attaching the ...

The polarity markings on LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) seem to be a common cause of confusion. The polarity may be indicated by a flat section on one side of the body or by one lead being shorter than ...

This circuit can be used to test up to three LEDs at once, connected in series. You can easily increase that number by using a higher supply voltage. If you do so, you should allow 2.7 V for each ...

3V is sufficient to turn on any LED, but is within its reverse break down voltage rating (that is why I did not use the common 9V battery). Short circuit current is approx. 30mA. I used a 3V lithium ...