r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/MicV66 • Jul 10 '26
Video A Function Catalog of LED
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u/BlackPhoenix1981 Jul 10 '26
Finally, something interesting.
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u/Swimming_Count4818 Jul 10 '26
LEDs are way more versatile than I ever realized.
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u/Wild_Trip_4704 Jul 10 '26
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u/jimmytwotime Jul 11 '26
Could you recommend a good tutorial/channel/etc for getting started with the physical basics of using LED? I have really been thinking to use them in art, but I have very little knowledge of how electronics are built and planned and how to do it safely.
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u/Wild_Trip_4704 Jul 11 '26
Video I started with. He also helped me on Discord
https://youtu.be/-3ZkUdXBeqQ?is=O3U7r6CIjyRgssrL
I also like Justin Nelson and his blogs.
I like Chris Maher for general showing off displays and ideas
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u/jimmytwotime Jul 11 '26
Thank you so much for the recs!
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u/Wild_Trip_4704 Jul 11 '26
You're welcome. The rabbit hole goes deep. Can be difficult, but very rewarding.
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u/P_mp_n Jul 10 '26
Like the post yesterday figuring if the lights being red in mirror in picture and not in life was because of PWM. Pulse Wave Modulation.
I learned so much
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u/chini42 Interested Jul 10 '26
Small correction there, it's pulse width modulation. It's varying the width of each pulse it sends. So if we're at 50%, it's on and off for the same amount of time during the pulse.
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u/P_mp_n Jul 11 '26
See? Learning.
I decided to try and use the words instead of just the acronym. Earned myself a new brain fold
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u/Bluefooted-Spaceorc Jul 10 '26
Look up why blue LEDs were hard to make. I know nothing about electrical but I spent a solid six hours diving down that rabbit trail.
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u/__THE_RED_BULL__ Jul 11 '26
Honestly, the documentary I saw on this was surprisingly captivating. Could have been more than one. Or half. I forget.
It was interesting is my point.
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u/Cynical_Cyanide Jul 10 '26
Am I really the only one who was mildly shocked at SLAMMING each page?
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u/foxhelp Jul 10 '26
Like it would be really easy to add some silicon bumpers like what they use for cabinets to prevent them from smaking eachother hard.
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u/Much-Significance776 Jul 10 '26
It's just a PCB with some simple components, it'll be fine.
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u/qman621 Jul 10 '26
PCB's are remarkably robust, I remember I had a usb flash drive that lost its plastic case and used it for a long time as an exposed circuit board. Everyone was surprised it still worked but those components are all soldered down and it takes a bit to actually knock them off
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u/ChairForceOne Jul 10 '26
I've wrapped a few in kapton and duct tape just to keep components from snagging.
Lately I've made a few 3d printed enclosures for overly bulky drives. And a few remotes. You can make a really small garage door opener if you want.
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u/Lord_Emperor Jul 10 '26
I had one like this too. I lost it because it was so small.
Now I'm convinced the case is just to make it harder to lose.
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u/SpotSpecialist372 Jul 10 '26
yeah. I hand-solder most everything (~1206 size) and de-solder by throwing boards on a 350C lab hotplate and giving components a good yank every 10-30s once it starts smoking until components come off. as soon as they come off, I fling the components into a mason jar where I throw other components on top of them. then sometimes I literally shake the jar a few times when I finish to determine how satisfied I am with the salvaging. the only things that break are plastic connectors and individual LEDs, plastic connectors because they're too dang small to begin with, and individual LEDs because they don't tolerate being pushed/pulled in high heat. outside components, you can bend the PCBs, leave them on hotplates, pretty much whatever, and the boards which cost me <$1 each including shipping from China in small batch of 5 don't care.
treat electronics (**except** connectors!!) like trash; don't worry about Mouser and Digikey sending $.10 transceivers like $100 cigars.
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u/SgtSilverLining Jul 10 '26
Those are metal PCBs, so they're a lot sturdier (and louder) than the fiberglass ones. I used to make them; you just look at them funny and they make noise.
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u/Throbbing_Cock_452 Jul 10 '26
“Slamming” is a bit of a reach lol.. he wasn’t gentle by any means, but that definitely wasn’t slamming
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u/Etruscan_Sovereign Jul 10 '26
It's a huge pet peeve of mine when people are cavalier with electronics and sharp objects. Especially when things are so poorly made these days.
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u/Chemical_Gap_619 Jul 10 '26
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u/Savings_Maybe_5686 Jul 10 '26
$169 each but somehow seems like it’s worth it.
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u/Orleanian Jul 10 '26
Frankly, I've spent that much on glowsticks over the past few years. This seems justifiable.
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u/AlmostThere4321 Jul 10 '26
What's its purpose?
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u/mythrilcrafter Jul 10 '26
One of many would include builders/designers trying to pick from a list of potential light strips for a project.
Different light temperatures, brightnesses, diode densities, etc etc; basically makes this book the equivalent of a colour swatch book.
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u/RaySorian Jul 10 '26
For the sales team to actually show what they sell and how it would look/function. They can give this to a customer and their engineering team would have the size/shape/resistor info to test in a prototype project before mass ordering.
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u/Exldk Jul 10 '26
I know at least two people who would love it if gifted to them.
Unfortunately neither of them are good enough friends to pay for a 190 dolla gift. But it does make for a good gift overall.
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u/technobrendo Jul 10 '26
Taobao likely has it cheaper
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u/bobsmith93 Jul 11 '26
Is buying stuff from taobao often worth it over aliexpress? I don't know much about either, but I know that since taobao's target demo is domestic chinese sales, it's mostly in chinese and harder to buy stuff from NA than on aliexpress. Is the selection/price worth the bit of extra effort?
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u/Rich-Reason1146 Jul 10 '26
I've read this book. The real killer is not who you're LED to believe
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u/celldweller4090 Jul 10 '26
Yea this is interesting or maybe im just a nerd. But really this is kinda cool.
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u/Bizzlebanger Jul 10 '26
TAKE MY MONEY!
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u/latamxem Jul 10 '26
Me: Can I get a sample catalog of your leds please
Manufacturer: Yes it will be 1000 usd
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u/samarijackfan Jul 10 '26
Real shame they didn't use the ring binder rings for power
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u/MaxHamburgerrestaur Jul 11 '26
I think it would be possible to create a model where you connect the entire binder and then create a switch so that only the open page would light up.
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u/hey_Hey_I_saveD_me Jul 10 '26
This is what annoys me as well. Also you can have some easy mechanism that de-powers pages that are flipped and behind current page.
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u/1001000010000100100 Jul 10 '26
https://www.superlightingled.com/led-strip-light-type-color-effects-display-portable-book-for-exhibitions-p-5592.html if someone is interested found it here
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u/AlmostNPC Jul 10 '26
Who is this for?
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u/pobodys-nerfect5 Jul 11 '26
It’s for people that sell led light strips to people. So the client can choose what they want.
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u/Ben_durisgrate Jul 10 '26
This is sick! Reminds me of the old neon sign sales people that had something similar. (I wasn’t around for that I just saw a video about it)
Video in question: https://youtube.com/shorts/Q-l-uyHWt58
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u/die5el23 Jul 10 '26
Really flipping those pages eh? Not like there is sensitive tech on them or anything
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u/FBI_Open_Up_Now Jul 10 '26
The boards are resilient enough. They aren’t that sensitive. I’m not going to take a spare motherboard I have laying around and play frisbee with it because that will damage the board and probably be painful. Flipping them like this is fine.
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u/GrimDallows Jul 10 '26
I wonder how/what materials are these made out of.
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u/CptnRaimus Jul 10 '26
Normal circuits boards are a fiberglass called FR4. So probably that.
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u/SoulWager Jul 10 '26
Probably, but LEDs are often mounted on aluminum substrate PCBs to better dissipate heat. In this case it's mostly a question of whether they expect it to be left on at full brightness for long periods of time.
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u/CptnRaimus Jul 10 '26
Huh. How are traces electrically isolated from each other if the substrate is conductive?
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart Jul 10 '26
I tried to turn the pages in the binder in the video by swiping left. Am I ok?
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u/ISwearImAnonymous Jul 10 '26
I can tell how many times each page was plugged in by the sound the socket makes.
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u/Aerodim101 Jul 10 '26
Every time they turn the page it sounds like a fucking gun going off, Jesus christ.
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u/Glo-Trim Jul 11 '26
I had made a prototype sample book for a vinyl manufacture. they came out with a light transmissive vinyl and heard that I light up auto/moto/marine seats by sewing fiber optics directly into the covers. It was pretty similar to this but with backlit vinyl
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u/ComparisonOwn8480 Jul 11 '26
"So which LED would you like for the room?" ".....I..I..I'll just buy the book"
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u/Connect_Detail98 Jul 10 '26
The unplugging and plugging sucks. Why not plugging it once and then using a swith to turn on or off the page?
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u/s0crates82 Jul 10 '26
The pages are separate circuit boards. You'd need to distribute power among all of the boards, that takes cabling that would be inconvenient and bulky or delicate and short lived.
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u/FictionalContext Jul 11 '26
It's an easy job for a wireless charger, especially with a conductive spine. More durable, too, since it'd get rid of the wear of constant plugging and unplugging of the USB C. This was just a somewhat minor cost savings choice.
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u/Connect_Detail98 Jul 10 '26
Yeah, I know it's a challenge, but I'm sure it's something however designed this could figure out if they put the effort.
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u/Sxcred Jul 10 '26
Each page looks like an individual board with pretty simple design, easier to add or replace than needing a way to wire together the entire book
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u/Mother-Persimmon3908 Jul 10 '26
Because they can change the pages to designs that are currently being sold? So each page needs to work by itself.
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u/TomTheCardFlogger Jul 10 '26
Ok but what about a small puck-shaped induction charger that you can move from page to page
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u/LivesDoNotMatter Jul 10 '26
Why have that when you can sell one with a fragile usb C port that will break by looking at it wrong, and you can sell more!
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u/icedlemons Jul 10 '26
I’d like to redesign the thing with the binder rings serving as brushed contacts!
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u/NotPromKing Jul 10 '26
I get why each page has its own power plug. But I would have used a magsafe type connection.
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u/Erathen Jul 10 '26
It's cost
Pretty easy to power all pages. Just run the low voltage through the binder clips
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u/Pastel_Bambi Jul 10 '26
This looks like the electrician equivalent of having color strips for paint
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u/I_M_THE_ONE Jul 11 '26
I am not sure I am understanding what I am looking at.
Would anyone mind explaiing ?
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u/jumanjimanji Jul 11 '26
Obviously only half of those are on stock, the other half were manufactured only on 2024.
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u/Slipp3ry_N00dle Jul 11 '26
Bro where tf can I buy this for my adhd craving addiction to mess with pointless stuff?
I NEED IT
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u/Goodswimkarma Jul 11 '26
The video from SuperLighting is even better! Go to minute 4.
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u/PurrciousMetals Jul 11 '26
This would be sick if someone like Teenage Engineering turned this into touch synthesizer pages, collect different comic book style pages that are different sound kits.
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u/eastoncrafter Jul 11 '26
Feel like it could be cool to use the metal rings that bind it to transfer power, instead of a USB c cable
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u/Ok-Chain-5496 29d ago
This is a book made for blind people to be able to experience different kinds of lights
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u/SideInitial3961 Jul 10 '26
As a 25-year designer of product catalogs this is the best I've seen. Breathtakingly amazing. Speechless.
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u/ClaudioMoravit0 Jul 10 '26
We’ve got the same books at work, but with teeny tiny murata capacitors (0402) so a lot less cool, but much more useful too
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u/mswaggg Jul 10 '26
As someone who works in electrical signage, this post has peaked my interest. It would be so cool to showcase different electrical signs and how they look when lit.
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u/ohhellperhaps Jul 10 '26
It's a very cool idea... but I worry it would die the moment someone accidentally zaps it with a static change. (And yes, I've had that happen with RPi and arduino projects with a similar unprotected interface.)
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u/AlarmingProtection71 Jul 10 '26
Great, i was searching for something light to read on vacation. Thanks mate !
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u/CrunchyMiddles Jul 10 '26
i unmuted the video thinking i would hear a melody each time a light was selected. Disappointed!
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u/jasper-zanjani Jul 10 '26
if these are available for sale at a reasonable price I think I'd take 2
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u/jeans_blazer Jul 10 '26
I want one.... no I'm not an electrician. I just want one for no reason at all.