If you use surface mount diodes or LEDs, you probably understand the challenges involved in correctly and consistently indicating diode polarity. A key element of that accuracy is our understanding of your board and the component markings. Have you ever had an LED or other diode placed backwards? PCB assemblers work hard to place every component, from the largest, highest pin-count logic chip, down to the smallest passive components and micro wafer scale BGAs, correctly every single time. So the placement of the resistor only doesn't matter if no such situation exists in the circuit: there is no third connection to the junction between the resistor and the LED which has an effect on some other circuit.Duane Benson, Chief Technology Champion, Screaming Circuits If the cathode is grounded instead, then the anode will provide a 1.2V reading. A 1.2V LED whose anode is connected to 5V will provide a 3.8V reading from the cathode, if current flows. Whether a load device is ground side or supply side also makes a difference if the voltage from the device is being conveyed to some other circuit where it is used for some purpose. In a battery circuit, there is no safety ground: the minus terminal is arbitrarily designated as the common return, and the word "ground" is used for that common. For instance, should you place light switch on the hot side of the lamp, or on the neutral? If you wire the switch so that the light is turned off by interrupting the neutral return, that means that the light bulb socket is permanently connected to hot! This means that if someone turns off the switch before changing the bulb is not actually any safer the main panel has to be used to actually break the hot connection to the socket. In high voltage circuits, the choice between supply-side or ground-side load matters from a safety perspective. It's usually nicer in some sense (if there is a choice) to have the important device be connected to ground, and the surrounding paraphernalia, like a biasing resistors, to be on the supply side. In the "tri-state polarity indicator", the limit resistor is on the supply side, rather than ground side, too. However, on the same page, a "LED polarity indicator" device is introduced where two back-to-back LEDs share a resistor which is necessarily on the anode of one and the cathode of the other. The accompanying diagram has the resistor on the anode, neglecting to explain that the choice is arbitrary. Most do not.Ī formula is then given about how to calculate the resistance from the supply voltage and the LED's forward current. Some LEDs include a built-in series resistor. LED DRIVE CIRCUIT - Because LEDs are current dependent, it's usually necessary to protect them from excessive current with a series resistor. In my 1988 edition of the book, series protection for LEDs is introduced on P. It does not claim that resistors must be on the anode and has examples where they are on the cathode. When you adjust the resistance, does it only slow down the charges before the resistor, or does it change the speed of all the charges in the entire circuit? I had to unlearn everything in college and don't recommend it. I read Getting Started in Electronics as a kid, and I think it teaches ideas like this poorly. If you slow down the chain at one point, it slows down at every other point, too, due to the links pushing and pulling against each other. Think about all the particles moving at all points in the circuit at once, like a belt or chain. They go through it, and their motion is what carries energy from one place to another. The charged particles are not "used up" by the LED. Does it matter which side of the LED it's on? Either way, it will break the circuit and prevent current from flowing.ĭon't think about individual particles traveling through the circuit. Imagine if the resistor were so large it completely prevented electrons from flowing. No it would not make the resistor pointless.
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