The above file as of 5/11/2008 before removal of most notes on items noted in 2002 or before then.
Why LEDs outperform incandescents more in specialty applications than in general lighting. (updated 5/14/2012)
Low Current LEDs - Use just a few milliamps or easily even .22-2 mA for LED indicator lamps! Reduce battery requirements or power cost, and equipment heating! Updated 4/23/2012.
My LED FAQ! This covers many of the questions people ask me. Please read this before e-mailing me. (updated 4/30/2012.)
"LEDs 101" or "LEDs For Dummies" - how to make them work, why to use a dropping resistor instead of a 2.4 or whatever volt regulator. (Don't laugh until you see what I have seen in sci.electronics.basics!) (Updated slightly 3/22/2011)
The truth of pulsing LEDs to make them appear brighter. The nonlinearity that sometimes makes this work is in LEDs and not in human vision. This usually does not work when feeding 20 mA or more of average current through an ultrabright LED. (updated slightly 6/19/2001)
(My "odd LED" page has been removed 2/9/2009.)
Overview of the different LED types - the different colors, brightnesses, and a bit of the basic chemistry and electrical and other properties of each of these. (Updated 6/26/2002)
My Yellow SiC LED Page - I managed to get my hands on one of those rare LEDs! (NEW FILE 12/13/2000, updated slightly 4/3/2010)
My page on adjusting / modifying / mixing LED colors for special colors, such as high brightness / high efficiency "lime green".
UV from the right kind of blue LED! Other blue LEDs and blue light sources will get some blacklight effects since many non-blue fluorescent substances fluoresce from some visible light as well as UV. But 450 nM broadband blue GaN LEDs can be made to produce some UV! UPDATED 10/1/2006 - links to spectral results of a hack on a historic obsolete kind of blue LED, the first commercially successful type of high brightness blue LED!
How much you need of red, green and blue LEDs to make white of various color temperatures. Only certain LED types are covered here. You need more red and especially notably much less blue than many would think! (New file 7/4/2001, updated 1/2/2008)
My Blue LED Shootout - to show advantages and disadvantages of popular and less-popular wavelengths of blue LEDs. (updated slightly 9/24/2000)
My page on Organic LEDs, Polymer LEDs and the like. New and still under construction with slow progress, some on 7/16/2003 - I am mainly following the usual semiconductor kind of LEDs more than stuff sometimes known as "DC electroluminescence".
My Nightlight File. Link from here to there added 1/16/2004 due to recently adding there its first LED nightlight. Updated 4/20/2010.
Where to get this - updated 2/16/2012.
NOTABLE - Craig Johnson has a "news" page consisting of his news:
http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/led1/ledleft.htm
http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/led1/whatsnew.htm
Craig does lots of updating. He has more time to test LEDs and to type web material than I do. There will always be something you can find there and not in my site, probably even nowhere else in the entire World Wide Web!
The LEDMuseum site has incurred a slowdown in growth in late 2008. However, significant updates continue mostly weekly with no sign of stopping. Most recent noted significant update 3/17/2012 for an LED, 3/22/2012 for what I noticed as a significant update on an LED flashlight, 5/11/2012 for an LED product other than a flashlight, 2/15/2012 for a laser product, 8/19/2011 for a non-LED flashlight, 11/16/2011 for a non-LED lighting or glowing product other than a flashlight, and 11/30/2011 for updating links from his site to other sites.
UPDATE 4/14/2006 - Now added: Spectra of many LEDs, LED flashlights and other LED products, and other light sources especially neon glow lamps. To get these, look for "spectra" among the many links to other pages in that site, in the left frame of http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/led1/ledleft.htm!
http://www.lightemittingdiodes.org, a site with lots of theoretical info on light emitting diodes, much of it quite technical.
The High Brightness LED Page at Compound Semiconductor.
A list of manufacturers of LED and LED products at the Lighting Research Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The home page of Renssalaer's Lighting research Center - includes links to LED stuff.
A 2002 article in EE Times on the history and progress and the efficiency of white LEDs and high power LEDs.
The "OddOne's" LED and white LED / oddball-LED-applications forum!
Their Main Website in Japan.
The website of their main USA office.
NOTE - current upgraded grade LEDs are best-obtained from Nichia sales offices. They do handle small orders. The ones from surplus outfits are often previous grade (dimmer but still very impressive) even if you confirm the same part numbers. (Nichia is known to improve their LEDs without changing their part numbers.) Or, they may vary strangely in beam width.
They now have UV LEDs, and violet and blue laser diodes.
Toyoda Gosei is another maker of ultrabright blue, blue-green, and green gallium nitride LEDs. This way to a top-level page for their LEDs.
Straight to the web site of Cree, another maker of bright gallium nitride LEDs.
The LED top page of Avago, spun off by Agilent, spun off by Hewlett Packard.
Lumileds, formerly a joint venture of Agilent and Philips Lighting, now it's Philips Lumileds.
Oriol, a new player in the GaN LED game.
ETG Technology, a source of LED lamps and cluster lamps including CREE LED lamps and LED lamps with Cree dice.
Craig Johnson's list of suppliers, manufacturers, etc. Includes LED products such as brake lights, marine cabin lights and flashlights as well as just LEDs.
Written by Don Klipstein.
Please read my Copyright and authorship info.
Please read my Disclaimer.