While looking into the schematic of the Nucleo STM32F767ZI, I saw a blue led driven by 3.3V, which is the GPIO voltage of the STM32. The datasheet of this led specifies a typical voltage drop of 3.3V, so how does this configuration work with that 680 limiting resistor, as almost all voltage drops on the led?
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\$\begingroup\$ Can you provide a link to the LED datasheet? The 3.3V drop will be rated for a particular current, and will vary according to current. At some specific current the drop will be low enough that the resistor gets enough residual voltage to match the current, and there should (hopefully) be enough information on the datasheet to calculate that. \$\endgroup\$– JulesCommented Jul 23, 2018 at 23:16
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\$\begingroup\$ This is the datasheet: everlighteurope.com/… \$\endgroup\$– user115094Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 23:19
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\$\begingroup\$ Related: "Current-limiting for LED when Vf = Vdd", "Can I use blue-green LEDs as MCU state indicators on 3.3 V power?", "Is there a point in adding a 1 Ohm resistor to this LED circuit?", "Driving an LED with resistor directly from 3.3v GPIO pin of a microcontroller" \$\endgroup\$– SamGibson ♦Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 23:58
1 Answer
On page 5 of the LED datasheet, you'll see a graph plotting forward current vs forward voltage. For the small currents that you need to work with here, it's pretty hard to read, but at very low currents (<1mA) it has roughly a voltage drop of 2.8V. This leaves 0.5V available for R31, so the current will be 0.5V/680R = about 0.7mA. The LED will be pretty faint at that kind of current, but it will work (the luminous intensity vs current graph suggests it will be a little under 2% of full intensity).
Personally, I'd swap that 680R for something a little lower. 470R will bring current over 1mA, which will at least put it actually onto the graphs, and 330R would make significant improvements in the visibility of the indicator.
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\$\begingroup\$ "The LED will be pretty faint at that kind of current" - not really. Luminous output of this LED is around 40-50 mcd, from datasheet, at nominal 20 mA. Light output is proportional to current. At 0.7 mA the output will be about 1.5 mcd. Just for reference, Digi-Key lists more than 200 different LEDs with output less than 1.6 mcd. This is plenty of light for logic state indication. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 24, 2018 at 1:25
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\$\begingroup\$ @AliChen - the datasheet suggests otherwise. It gives a curve for light output that drops very rapidly below approximately 2mA, and like I say suggests that the output intensity will be less than 2% of full, so around 0.8mcd. \$\endgroup\$– JulesCommented Jul 24, 2018 at 1:27
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\$\begingroup\$ Okay,okay, I estimated at about 3%, you and datasheet say <2%, 0.8 mcd is still a lot for a human eye, even under sunlight. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jul 24, 2018 at 1:35