Easy to Make LED W/resistor for Solderless Breadboards

by ProvideYourOwn

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Intro: Easy to Make LED W/resistor for Solderless Breadboards

There is hardly a project that doesn't require some LEDs. When prototyping, you often need some LEDs for indication and troubleshooting. Of course, each LED needs a current limiting resistor. Therefore, putting these two components into one single package is logical and very useful. I tried cutting one of the LED's legs short and soldering a resistor in its place, but the assembly was just too fragile to be very useful. After some head scratching, I came up with this solution:

Step 1
Gather your parts:
  • 5 pin male header
  • 500 ohm resistor (or whatever size you want)
  • LED
Step 2
Cut off the three middle pins on the bottom (long) side. See photos.

Step 3
Bend pins of LED, soldering the cathode to the first two pins, and the anode to the next two pins. The cathode is usually the short lead and flat side of the LED body. I soldered the anode side first so as to not get confused. See photo.

Step 4
Solder the resistor between the anode and the remaining pin.

You're done now. The resistor is always connected to the positive which is the popular convention.

Features
  • Solid and robust
  • Easy and quick to make
  • Bridges from either the negative or positive rail onto the breadboard
Update:
Here is another instructable with even more 'pluggable' components. Includes:
  • Switches - tact & slide
  • 2.1mm DC jack
  • Trimpot
  • Bipolar transistors
  • SMD MOSFETs

8 Comments

iApple guy 11 years ago

Never searching around in my bin of resistors for a LED again!

pfred2 11 years ago

I keep my resistors in bags in the order of their values. I got tired of searching for resistors myself. All values of resistors!

pfred2 11 years ago

I trim a lead of the LED, then solder a resistor to it. I made up a bunch that way with heat shrink wrap on the leads. They're my "experimentation" LEDs.

diy_bloke 11 years ago

a lick of red paint on one end and you'll never have to wonder what the anode side was again

lewisb42 11 years ago

Heh, I recently did this with a push-button: http://www.double-oops.org/projects/mini-sumo-bot

(pics at bottom of the page)

russ_hensel 11 years ago

If you like this you may also like: http://www.opencircuits.com/Breadboard

vitya 11 years ago

Good idea! You may want to substitute the resistor with an SMD resistor - it fits between two pins easily and will give a neater image.