LED ?

[duanew81]

I just started replacing some of the LED's in my stereo display, but I noticed something different about these LED's than the gauge cluster LED's.

First off, I would take pics, but the damn things are so freakin' small that I can't get them to show up.

The gauges use 1206 or 603 LED's, which have two contact points (+/-). The stereo display has a very similar looking LED, same size and overall look, but they have FOUR contact points. Why? what's the reason for splitting the +/-? Does it connect differently, or the same as the two contact style LED's? I was planning on using the 1206's I used for the gauges, but I'm not sure if it will work.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Can someone shed some light on the subject (no pun intended). I'm curious if I can even do this LED swap now.

This is about as close as I can get to showing you what I mean...

l``l`````````l``l
- l-l------O-----l-l -
l__l_________l__l
Two contact points


[]``````````[]
-l------o-------l-
[]__________[]

Four contact points

[zlatsky]

Re: LED ?

Are they sharing the ground?

[duanew81]

Re: LED ?

I'm not sure. I can't tell if they are or not. All four contact points have different pads on the board. It looks like they are linked along the long span, not the short span of the LED body.

[zlatsky]

Re: LED ?

I have seen really weird shit before when it comes to SMDs but this seems odd. Are they the size of two 0603s put together?

[duanew81]

Re: LED ?

Have you seen the gauge LED's? they look exactly like them, size wise. They are a little bigger than 1206's. Kind of like these...

http://www.lc-led.com/View/itemNumber/483

these have 3 connection points though. This just confuses me even more.

[duanew81]

Re: LED ?

Shit! I've also pulled one of the solder pads off the board when removing one of the LED's. How the hell do I fix that?

[zlatsky]

Re: LED ?

It's not a hard fix. either follow the trace and sand off the green to get to the wire and solder a wire from there to the led.