Table of Contents
Overview
One night, I was wondering how many LED(s) I could stick onto a PCB and how closely JLCPCB could place the LED(s). So I made panels that were 3 columns of 16 x White LEDs.
Design Considerations
I wanted a good deal of LED(s) on the board and I wanted to be able to use either 5V or 3v3. So one of the things I did was to organize the LED(s) into parallel columns electrically. Lots of ground plane on the reverse side for heat dissipation, and headers on the ends for linking to power or other boards.
I went with all white LED(s) in order to make the functionality of the board more general. Ie, can use color filters/etc.
Gotchas
So after the boards arrived, I realized that there were some issues.
- I had intended for each column to be independent. However, I had made 2 GND and 2 VCC rows linked.
- I had not considered keeping the distribution of LED elements consistent and the final row was reversed vs the first two rows.
- There was no mounting location for the LED panel. (Though I later noted I could use the headers as mounts.)
- I had chosen intermediate values for the resistor values. Between that and the parallel nature of the arrangement, I can use both 5V and 3v3 as the power source without burning out the light panel.
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