Thread: Led Question

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I am making some led spotlight to accent some displays and have a question. What mcd is considered super/ultra bright? I am planning on ordering some prewired 12v leds, but I find discrepancies between sellers as to what is considered super/ultra bright. What have you guys found to be acceptable mcd for 1 led small spotlights in the colors of blue, green and white? Other colors are welcome too.

TIA

I use 5mm Ultra high brightness 15° LEDs for my haunt. They are quite bright on their own but I usually use groups of 24.

Check out the following pictures to see examples of them in use.
24 Green LEDs and 2 Orange
2 Green LEDs
24 Blue LEDs

As you can see, the mcd ratings vary quite a lot. The Blues are only 12,000mcd where the Greens are as high as 30,000mcd. Those LEDs all look good together and you can do color mixing with them so I think it depends on the color.

Another thing that can affect the brightness is the beam angle. A wider angle with the same mcd would mean the LED is brighter.

You should check out these at sparkfun. This link is for a red one but they also have blue and green versions. They are essentially 5 individual LEDs in a single unit. Note that they are large LEDs - they are 10mm wide as opposed to a normal LED that is 5mm. They also sell a little board with one of each color and a microcontroller so you can create color changing sequences - its called the MaxM and I think I will use it in a pumpkin. Any of these are waaaayyyy too bright to look at.