An interesting lighting option

From the photo it looked like the body of the LED itself (not the lens, but the tiny little board it's mounted on) extended over 1mm in length - but the ruler isn't aligned with that side of the LED so with perspective and all I can't say for sure my estimated measurement is right.

I get most of my LEDs at mouser.com.   White LEDs in small quantities sell for $0.30 - $0.50 each or more depending on the specific item you buy.  I also sometimes buy LEDs on ebay - sometimes that can be a good deal, other times not so much...

tetsujin wrote:

From the picture it looks more like approximately 1mm x 1.5mm - 0603 size or close to it...  'course I could be wrong...

You might be adding in the soldering? When it's right in front of me, it's pretty darn small.

So where are you getting yours? Obviously I had no luck with extracting these but are still interested in the "little ones". 

tetsujin wrote:

Smaller than this? The meaning of the 0603 designation is like this: length and width in hundredths of an inch.  So .06 inches by .03 inches, or about 1.5mm x .8mm.  0402 would be about 1mm x 0.5mm. Not quite "head of a pin" sized, I think, though 0402 might be close...

Without the solder, it looks to be appx 1mm by.75mm???? So maybe it falls under that 0402 designation?

Smaller than this?

The meaning of the 0603 designation is like this: length and width in hundredths of an inch.  So .06 inches by .03 inches, or about 1.5mm x .8mm.  0402 would be about 1mm x 0.5mm.

Not quite "head of a pin" sized, I think, though 0402 might be close...

tetsujin wrote:

MrSquid2U wrote:  tetsujin wrote:  MrSquid2U wrote: I grabbed some of that hoping to figure out how to extract the lil LEDs from the tape. Try as I might that never happened with any success though. Seems kind of silly...   LEDs are cheap enough that I don't know why anybody would buy a string of 'em just to extract the individual LEDs...     It would seem silly if you never saw just how small these are. They're even smaller than micro surface mount LEDs which is why they didn't cooperate being extracted from the plastic they were embedded in. Now if you're satisfied with the "standard range" of LEDs you'll never need to worry about exploring an option like these. But then it seems kind of silly to me that a modeler wouldn't be curious to find the smallest light sources possible for projects. How small are we talking, here?  I mean, I work regularly with 0603's, and the only reason I haven't worked more with 0402's is because I have a considerable stash of 0603s and most projects don't require anything smaller...  (Though there were a couple installations where 0603's were too big, so I ran fiber instead...) I am with you in the quest to get smaller LEDs - I didn't know that's what we were dealing with here.  I thought it would probably be something like a larger SMD size in there.

I don't even know the 'official designation' for the ones I have? But they are embedded within the plastic runner with some very small "wiring", if you wanna call it that? The ones I have are about the size of a pinhead? Or, I'd say similar to a "thick" strand of fiber optic. But they are quite bright and I've yet to see FO transfer that much light?

So yeah, they caught my attention!

MrSquid2U wrote:

tetsujin wrote:  MrSquid2U wrote: I grabbed some of that hoping to figure out how to extract the lil LEDs from the tape. Try as I might that never happened with any success though. Seems kind of silly...   LEDs are cheap enough that I don't know why anybody would buy a string of 'em just to extract the individual LEDs...   It would seem silly if you never saw just how small these are. They're even smaller than micro surface mount LEDs which is why they didn't cooperate being extracted from the plastic they were embedded in. Now if you're satisfied with the "standard range" of LEDs you'll never need to worry about exploring an option like these. But then it seems kind of silly to me that a modeler wouldn't be curious to find the smallest light sources possible for projects.

How small are we talking, here?  I mean, I work regularly with 0603's, and the only reason I haven't worked more with 0402's is because I have a considerable stash of 0603s and most projects don't require anything smaller...  (Though there were a couple installations where 0603's were too big, so I ran fiber instead...)

I am with you in the quest to get smaller LEDs - I didn't know that's what we were dealing with here.  I thought it would probably be something like a larger SMD size in there.

just installed these in the chest box of an ATAT driver. The unit has a switch and circuit board to allow a bunch of different flash patterns or just remain steady on.

Buddho wrote:

Oh boy...MrSquid2U...now ya DID it...we are gonna have 1/144 scale cockpits lit up now...lol!

IF, I could have gotten them durn things detached- then maybe so!

tetsujin wrote:

MrSquid2U wrote: I grabbed some of that hoping to figure out how to extract the lil LEDs from the tape. Try as I might that never happened with any success though. Seems kind of silly...   LEDs are cheap enough that I don't know why anybody would buy a string of 'em just to extract the individual LEDs...

It would seem silly if you never saw just how small these are. They're even smaller than micro surface mount LEDs which is why they didn't cooperate being extracted from the plastic they were embedded in.

Now if you're satisfied with the "standard range" of LEDs you'll never need to worry about exploring an option like these.

But then it seems kind of silly to me that a modeler wouldn't be curious to find the smallest light sources possible for projects.

MrSquid2U wrote:

I grabbed some of that hoping to figure out how to extract the lil LEDs from the tape. Try as I might that never happened with any success though.

Seems kind of silly...   LEDs are cheap enough that I don't know why anybody would buy a string of 'em just to extract the individual LEDs...

They are usually in the area for Int/Ext customizing parts.

Pep Boys as an isle of the stuff.

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