Can I trim and bend the leads on LED lights?

jkiker · Post by **jkiker** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:06 pm

Hi all,

In thinking through all of the design issues around lighting up my y-wing, linear space for an LED plus it's resistor may become an issue, mainly in the cockpit area which will be making use of fiber optics. I have also noticed that the leads coming out of LED lights seems to be quite long. So today's question is, can the LED's leads be trimmed and bent without having them break off? Being able to do so would make it easier to figure out the LED/FO design layout for the cockpit tub.

Thanks in advance, Jim

Joseph Osborn · Post by **Joseph Osborn** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:13 pm

Most certainly you can!!

jkiker · Post by **jkiker** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:31 pm

Hi Joseph,

Thank you for a quick response and one that will be helpful!

Regards, Jim

robiwon · Post by **robiwon** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 3:58 pm

Here is a trick you can do with LEDs to keep the leads as short as possible. You need a good soldering iron to do this. Solder your wire to the leads as close to the base of the LED itself. Once cool, you can clip off the excess leads. You need to solder quick as your so close the diodes and they don't like a lot of heat.

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:41 pm

Another neat trick with LEDs that I use all the time:

If you know you're going to need a long string of them, like in a strip-type engine (ala Millennium Falcon), drill a row of evenly spaced holes in a piece of thick styrene cut to fit the engine and insert and glue the LEDs with the flat sides all facing the same direction. Bend the leads over until they contact the leads of the LED next to it, then solder. This saves me a TON of wire.

You can do this with any number of LEDs, provided they're all the same color. Each color LED requires a slightly different base voltage, so mixing them means the more power-hungry LEDs will be starved in favor of the easier-to-power LEDs, because electricity is lazy.