question about soldering LED

[bcredbottle]

I am on the Keycool numpad drop. It has white LEDs. Can I put any LED's in there as long as they're 3mm, or is there some other compatibility consideration (e.g. resistance, color) that might affect my ability to swap in different LEDs?

[Oobly]

Different LED's do have different forward voltage drop, so they require different resistors to control the current through them. That said, though, most boards that have LED's installed use a resistor that limits the current enough for most LED's to work, although the brightness will differ.

In general, white, blue and green clear LED's have somewhat similar forward voltage drop, red and the milky type tend to have lower ones and so should use higher value resistors.

[bcredbottle]

Different LED's do have different forward voltage drop, so they require different resistors to control the current through them. That said, though, most boards that have LED's installed use a resistor that limits the current enough for most LED's to work, although the brightness will differ.

In general, white, blue and green clear LED's have somewhat similar forward voltage drop, red and the milky type tend to have lower ones and so should use higher value resistors.

Very good to know, thank you!

[VoteForDavid]

Came from http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/diode/diode_8.html but I found it through a GIS.