These are very interesting 5mm diffused RGB LEDs – instead of having 4 pins to control 3 LEDs, they have only two leads – power and ground. When powered, the LEDs perform a flashing effect with all the colors. See the video below for the timing and look. There is no way to change the ‘program’ or rate, its burned into a little chip that is inside the LED itself. If you need to have an RGB perform a particular arrangement, check out our RGB LEDs that you can easily control with a microcontroller We also have a version that’s a ‘slow fading’ RGB color cycle.

They’re fairly bright LEDs, we guess its something around 1000 mcd total. They do diffuse nicely so you can the color changing from any angle. The forward voltage of the whole LED is about 3.4VDC but you can drive them from a lithium coin cell like a CR2032 and they’ll just be a little dimmer. We don’t have a datasheet showing the current draw over different voltages and colors but at the ‘rated’ 3.4V its approx 20 mA and at 3.0V its approx 10mA.

Comes in a pack of 10 LEDs! Although the LEDs are all the same shape and have the same basic program, due to manufacturing variables they will not sync together – they’ll slowly drift in and out of sync.

Technical Details

• 5mm diffused RGB LED
• Two leads
• Power with 3-3.4VDC
• Current draw: 10-20mA depending on voltage and displayed color