Purple SMD LEDs?

[kennyj]

I have a side project where I'm buying broken Sansa e200 MP3 players from eBay and repairing them. It's working out well, but I want to personalize these a bit; leave my mark as it were. They all have click wheels that light up during use; these wheels are made of translucent white plastic. The light comes from four small SMD LEDs, and the only color offered is blue.

I want to do something unique and make it purple instead. I still haven't identified exactly what size or spec the LEDs are, but others have had success transplanting red LEDs salvaged from other devices.

Only problem is, I can't seem to find consumer-market purple SMDs. Anyone know of a decent source for these in smaller quantities? At most I might get 40-50 of them, but first I'll want a small sample just to see how they look.

 

[brickbat]

I've not seen purple LEDs either. Two options - use a white LED with a purple filter, or get a bicolor red/blue LED and set it up for a nice magenta. Or since there are 4 LEDs use 2 red and two blue.

 

[Nitroz]

I have quite a few small red LEDs if you're interested.

 

[kennyj]

I've seen purple LEDs but not SMD... Granted there aren't many of them either.

I guess I might be able to pull off a 3mm LED if I sand it down a bit and mount it at an angle, but it's a *really* tight fit.

 

[LumenHound]

Would something like these size 1206 UV SMD's work or do they have to be 410-415nm?

 

[liveforphysics]

The purple SMD LED's I used to work with doing cellphone mods years ago were a red LED paired right next to a purple LED, and covered by a cloudy white diffuser. The red of course had a tiny resistor built in to prevent it from burning up when the package received the 3.6V that the blue LED next to it needed to light.

Pretty slick little units, definately had a purple look to the light, and definately were the most difficult of all the SMD LED packages to solder, as temperature caused the 2 LED's to unbond from eachother very easily if you hesitated for more than a moment during the soldering.

 

[2xTrinity]

Would something like these size 1206 UV SMD's work or do they have to be 410-415nm?

He wants an LED that looks purple, not one meant for lighting up fluorescent paints (checking money etc) -- which means that red + blue is what he's looking for, and will be a lot more efficient than spectral violet/UV (the eye is not very sensitive here).

 

[kennyj]

Where did you get those little LED combo packages from?

 

[Tronic]

lc-led.com have purple SMD LED but they are not in stock.

Maybe you can mix the color with this RGB fullcolor LED

Or you can try a pink LED.
http://www.led-shop24.de/pd846703482.htm?categoryId=51
http://www.dotlight.de/shop/product_info.php/cPath/167_172/products_id/415

(I don't know if this shop ship to US but I can forward the package for you)

 

[Mark_Larson]

I have one of the players you are talking about, and I think white would be cooler.

 

[kennyj]

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=50 Two of the stickied topics are LED mods - one is just darkening the blue LEDs, the other is a red LED replacement.

I don't think plain white would be all that great personally, but there IS the point that it can be filtered to produce a more desirable color...

Tronic, thanks for the links, and thank you very much for the offer. I'm not in a hurry to buy the parts at the moment, but I'll keep an eye on that stuff and if I need, I'll get back to you with a PM.