Anybody know anything about IR leds??????

[ShaolinDrunkard]

HI all, I'm new here,

I was wondering if anyone knew anything about Infrared leds and how they work. My main question is, does anyone know if I replace the original Ir led on say a remote with a larger one, will that increase its range? Or if I add more Ir leds will that increase the devices range?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Citivolus]

You may change the beam profile to something narrower for increased range, but it isn't going to dramatically improve light output unless you also change the current to the LED. The trade-off in changing only the beam profile is that you would then need to aim it more precisely at the TV if you go narrower, and you would decrease your range if you went wider.

You could theoretically take an IR star and pair it with a transistor and drive it at full power, but it would require more than just changing the LED.

Many 5mm IR LEDs are capable of being driven over 100mA at a low duty cycle. I've got some 5mm Osram IR LEDs that were visible with an IR camera at over 150m range (~500 feet) when driven at 50mA pulsed. I've contemplated replacing them with a higher power IR emitter and reflector to see how far I could get. The application that I had in mind required line of sight signaling from a bit over a kilometre away, which was not possible with the configuration that I was using.

Regards,
Eric