We all use em, we all love em, so what are your favorite LED’s?
And Why?
Size, type, style, it doesn’t matter, as long as it is Modular based. (Something behind a panel and used in Modular Synth Racks - can be unique modules!)
Not an LED Chaser/Cube/Grid/etc. thread… lol
(Unless it is a module…)
Here are my absolute favorite LED’s.
I’ve always loved the glow of purple lights.
My favorites are purple strings of Xmas/Halloween lights! So it was fitting to find UV LED’s for projects!
OoOo those are sick!
Ooooh, those are nice…
So far for my Kosmo builds I have just been using bog standard red across the board for consistancy. I don’t think I have a favorite though, although I am a fan of RGB illumination in my arcade buttons so I can change them in software.
I’ve always loved the first red LEDs that were available. They were soft and a bit dim, and would be thrown out these days.
Wonder if they have UV purple 7 segment displays
Before you put UV LEDs everywhere, check this page:
(TL;DR they can be harmful, but unless you’re staring into one up close you’re probably fine. for the details, read all answers; the first couple gives some rules of thumb, the last one does some maths.)
Non-superbright if possible. Photosensitive, but like all colors! All sizes!
I picked up a bag of 100 of those at a local store a few months ago. I love their faint glow:
Very HAL 9000.
Why not go all in:
https://www.culttvmanshop.com/HAL9000-11-scale-kit-from-Moebius-Models_p_4785.html
(random source, might be cheaper elsewhere)
Adam savage looking at one the movie props!
LED with a camera lens!
I remember buying the “Maplin Catalogue” every year int he late 80’s and early 90’s…
Imagine the awe when they listed a BLUE led ~1999 perhaps…
£10! for one!
Rob
No particular favorite type. Did an LED mod on a guitar once. 3 super bright led’s inside the body glued to strands of fibre optic worked through the pick guard and paint work. Looked fantastic - if you played in pitch black 
I’m going to have to get one of these.
To be ridiculously pedantic, light emitting diodes of sufficient brightness weren’t available at the time 2001 was produced. Computer panels of the era typically had replaceable incandescent bulbs behind coloured glass or plastic.
This is perhaps the most important topic.
Personally, I started out with what sam used for LED’s - yellow for LFO’s, red for the filter, blue for the envelope generators. I’m attempting to come up with my own color coding using this as the base. I’m thinking green for the clock divider and orange/amber for VCA’s.
I tend to think of red lights as a warning, so most of the time I reserve red LEDs for things like over voltage indicators — of which there aren’t many. Mostly I use green. I never thought about different colors for different modules or types of signals, but if I had, I don’t think I would’ve done so.
When I built the Haraldswerk sequencer I used blue LEDs just because I didn’t like green with the purple knobs I’d chosen.
We’ve disputed red/green bicolor LEDs before: Some like red to mean positive, as in red insulation for +V, while I think of LEDs as analogous not to wire colors but to traffic lights, hence green for positive (accelerate) and red for negative (decelerate).
I suppose if I had it all to do over again, I would have stuck with the “Red for positive/blue for negative” and done that with the VCLFO. And then perhaps use the yellow for the filter (since I both dislike yellow and LED’s on filters seems to be a pretty rare occurrence anyway).
What started this whole thing in my head off were ctorps K25 modules. Yellow for the LFO, Blue for the A/R, bicolor red & blue for the attenuvert, and for the G2T… white?
They all need more current limiting, I come away from a little play with stars in my eyse…
