LED Peak millamp NEWB question?

[19rookie82]

I am kinda a NEWB at building LED stuff so bear with me on this one. If you have a an led that has a peak ma rating of 20ma and you hook it up to a battery with 200ma will you overdrive (thus kill) the led or will it have a really long battery life?

With the LED think just a standard 5mm nothing fancy hypothetical led...

 

[Marduke]

I am kinda a NEWB at building LED stuff so bear with me on this one. If you have a an led that has a peak ma rating of 20ma and you hook it up to a battery with 200ma will you overdrive (thus kill) the led or will it have a really long battery life?

With the LED think just a standard 5mm nothing fancy hypothetical led...

Do you mean a battery with 200mAh? Current and capacity are different measurements.

Without knowing more about your setup, it's difficult to say more.

 

[greg_in_canada]

If you add a resistor (or a driver circuit) to limit the current to 20mA then you would get about 10 hours of lift from a 200mAh battery (I assume that is what you mean by 200mA battery).

Greg

 

[Marduke]

If you add a resistor (or a driver circuit) to limit the current to 20mA then you would get about 10 hours of lift from a 200mAh battery (I assume that is what you mean by 200mA battery).

Greg

That would depend entirely on the Vf of the LED and the voltage of the battery. It would only be 10 hours if both voltages match.