By using a specially designed LED controller the 3 colors are driven at different brightness levels and various hues of colors are produced. RGB LEDs have 3 connections: one for each color. Just like images displayed by your computer monitor or a phone’s liquid crystal display (LCD) the colors are produced in various brightness levels to form different color combinations. Red, green, and blue (RGB) LEDs are made of 3 separate color LED segments combined into one small package. Today’s multicolored LEDs are very tiny and some are only a few millimeters in size! These LEDs are actually a combination of 3 separate red, green, and blue LEDs built together. Image showing a multicolored red-green-blue (RGB) LED up close. When done well they still look great! How do multicolor RGB LEDs work?
One drawback is that they can’t reproduce the “soft glow” neon tubes can, but that’s a minor drawback overall. It’s not just because they’re so durable and have an extremely long useful life (in the 10, 000 of hours, typically) but also because they need a lower voltage to work. Resistors are used with LEDs when powered by car voltage (normally somewhere around 12V).Įxtremely high (tens of thousands of hours)Īs you can see from the table, LEDs have significant advantages in nearly every category that matters. This means they must be used with a resistor to limit the amount of current flowing Otherwise they burn out quickly. Unlike regular light bulbs, however, LEDs actually work on a low voltage (say around 1.5 volts or so each). Over the years more and more companies have improved upon them and now produce cheap, great-looking LEDs that can produce light in a variety of colors. How LEDs produce lightĭiodes have a special side effect when they pass electricity – they produce light! The color of the light produced depends upon the materials used to make them. If you’d like to read more about the different types of LEDs check out this page. Wires are bonded to the tiny components for connecting power. The tiny components like the LED chip (the semiconductor materials themselves) are very sensitive but are sealed in an extremely hard and durable epoxy housing. That principle is the basis of microscopic transistors which are what allow microprocessors and many other modern technological miracles to work. Diodes are extremely important to the electronics world as they’re electrical one-way valves, so to speak.