Im new

[gokhotit]

I am currently in teh design and development stage of my sim building. I was curious as to what functions FS2Phidgets can and cannot control in teh sim.

also, since im here, and I know this is the wrong forum, but what size LEDs can work with the phidget boards?

thanx in advance.

[Skydvdan]

I'm using 5mm led's and they work fine with the 8/8/8 board.

[phidgets]

Hi,

I'll let Alan answer the list of functionality for you.

The 8/8/8 IFK puts out 5V so it works with 5V LED's

The other 2 IFK's don't supply the power, you as the builder do. So you just match up the power supplied to your LED's.

I thought almost all LED's were 5V or under, but I may be wrong.

Matt

[fmarkov]

A plain old LED is usually rated at around 1.7 volts and 10 milliamps and requires a current limiting resistor

If you are providing 5 volts then you need to use Ohms law to figure out the current limiting resistor that you need. Ohms law is Volts = Current * Resistance

For the 1.7 v 10ma LED above, the current limiting resisitor would be:

5 volts total (from power supply) minus the 1.7 the LED needs = 3.3 volts left.

Ohms Law: Volts = Current * Resistance
Resistor = Volts/Current
Resistor = 3.3/.010 (10 miliamps)
Resistor = 330 ohms (a resistor with Orange,Orange,Black stripes)

This being said, there are literally thousands of types of LEDs that have various voltages and currents. For my simulator I used 120+ super bright red LEDs for my home-built custom panel backlighting. The ratings on these were 2.2 volts and 20ma. So I needed to use 190 ohm resistors.

The Phidget 8/8/8 outputs looks like it current-limits them so no resistor or external power is needed. The 0/16/16 needs external power and resistor for each LED.

Hope this helps.

Frank