LED help?

[ownaginatious]

I tried hooking up some infrared LEDS that I'm planning to put into a webcam to a USB port. The problem is the wires on the LED start to get very hot as soon as the circuit starts going, but cool instantly when I unplug them. Am I doing something wrong? Is 5 volts too much for these LEDs?

[Nagoshi]

Probably. Where you got these infrared LEDs? In a remote control? And I doubt such a system would work. And you need power that goes to the webcam actually, so what's good into having a ''Wireless'' webcam when you need power from an external source?

[ownaginatious]

I got them at an electronics store. They don't look like they came out of a remote. Its not a wireless webcam, its infrared leds to allow it to see in the dark. If you remove the IR filter from a webcam and add IR LEDs, it can magically see in the dark :). It will make the image a little more washed out though for daylight viewing. Since there are 6 LEDs, maybe I will link each 2 in series and then link them all together in parallel to bring down the voltage.

[Maz]

what is the rating on the leds? and how much juice are you pumping through them?

just figure out what size resistor you need
if you are lazy check this out, its pretty simple
resister calculator (http://www.metku.net/index.html?path=mods/ledcalc/index_eng)