Help LED apps bad for the phone?

[Jysnwllms]

i know there are now apps to keep the leds on so we can use it as a flashlight or whatever but does this kill the leds? i was thinking why else wouldnt htc put this functionality into the phone? maybe the leds are only meant to be on for short bursts like for the camera and keeping them on will burn it out. just curous

 

[AHanks12]

I want to try out the app but I'm gonna hold off for a bit. Something tells me it's probably not in the best interest of the led's to leave them on for any extended period of time.

 

[bmwhartgeM3]

Well, how long we talking here. If you need to use them for a few minutes thats really nothing at all for a led. These are among the longest lasting and energy effcient lights you can get. I wouldnt recommend leaving them on to work on your car for 30mins to an hour or anything like that although that could still be done but I would look for any heating up on the battery pack or phone itself if you were to run them for a extended period of time.

BTW what app have you found that work on the incredible to turn the leds on?????

 

[GrandMasterB]

I want to try out the app but I'm gonna hold off for a bit. Something tells me it's probably not in the best interest of the led's to leave them on for any extended period of time.

This. It can't be good to have them on for an extended period of time so I avoid LED apps.

 

[arunningpir8]

LED's have thousands of hours of life in them...why do you think that they are being used everywhere now? Especially in cars? It's because they last somewhat forever, take less energy to power than a bulb, less heat than a bulb, and are also brighter. You will not have any problems with the LED's burning out in your phone unless there is a power issue, which I am sure you would have known by now.

Long story short: the app won't hurt your LED's. Any talk of it is just silly nonsense.

 

[Jysnwllms]

but if that is true why wouldnt they inlclude the leds to be used with video recording?

 

[vzwuser76]

I am an electronics tech and can tell you, leds have a loooong life. Many are rated at anywhere from 20k-100k hours. The trick to not damaging an led is to not apply to much voltage and not overheat it. Assuming the supply voltage for the leds in the Incredible does not go over it's threshold,and you don't leave it on for a half hour or longer, there should be no reason the leds won't outlast your phone. If you need it for a half hour or longer, find a flashlight. I have the buggy Incredible led app (I've wasted more than $1 on a lot worse) and when I've had to use it I've typically had it on for no more than a few minutes. So as long as you don't over-voltage or overheat the leds, they should be fine.

 

[vzwuser76]

but if that is true why wouldnt they inlclude the leds to be used with video recording?

From what I've heard, Froyo 2.2 will unlock this. I've heard some devs are waiting for this to make creating an led flashlight app easier to do. Or you could just go into camcorder mode (with I'm assuming a night setting) and use it as a flashlight that way.

 

[Jysnwllms]

thanks for the replies i just wanted to make sure i wasnt damaging them at all

 

[Reddman6988]

I'd be most worried about the battery over heating because of the constant drain on it. Not the actual LED's themselves

 

[kibble]

From what I understand about camera flash LED's, they are designed to take a high current for a short amount of time (to flash obviously) and provide a high intensity of light. A good flashlight app should be able to control the current (providing the hardware allows for such function, which shouldn't be an issue) and keep it at a level below that maximum that will not overstress/overheat the LED and cause it to fail prematurely or damage it to where it doesn't provide its capable light output. If the LED is powered properly, theoretically no damage should occur and there shouldn't be excessive currents drawn from the battery that would cause components to heat up much.

 

[yojoe600]

LEDs will not be harmed in the use of your Incredible!!! dont be soo scared people just dont leave it on all day... i used my omnia as a flashlight all the time with no problem

 

[eleazar]

Long story short: the app won't hurt your LED's. Any talk of it is just silly nonsense.

What he said.

 

[arunningpir8]

I can't believe how much talk is still going on about this

As for the question of why it wasn't included stock...why wasn't 720p recording included stock? No one knows for sure, but just because it isn't included doesn't mean it will blow up your phone.

The half hour story is also a joke. LED's don't "overheat." Leave them on for a full day, and then touch them or take the temperature..guarantee you it won't be any hotter than it was when you first turned it on.

LED's were meant for this application - VERY long life and VERY high brightness and LITTLE energy consumption.

Anyone who wishes to challenge this any further leave them on for a whole day and tell me they get hotter or they burnt out (they won't)

 

[arunningpir8]

P.S. perfect example: LED TV's! Do you think they would sell a TV that burned out in a year or less, or that heated up and died? I guess if you guys want an LED tv you can only watch a half an hour at a time...just sayin...

 

[dguy]

There won't be a problem. Froyo will give you the ability to leave the LED on while recording video so you can record video in the dark. They wouldn't allow this if it was bad for the hardware.

 

[kibble]

The half hour story is also a joke. LED's don't "overheat." Leave them on for a full day, and then touch them or take the temperature..guarantee you it won't be any hotter than it was when you first turned it on.

LED's were meant for this application - VERY long life and VERY high brightness and LITTLE energy consumption.

Anyone who wishes to challenge this any further leave them on for a whole day and tell me they get hotter or they burnt out (they won't)

P.S. perfect example: LED TV's! Do you think they would sell a TV that burned out in a year or less, or that heated up and died? I guess if you guys want an LED tv you can only watch a half an hour at a time...just sayin...

*facepalm* You guys, don't do this to yourselves, you're setting yourself up for failure...

All LED's are NOT created equal. Yes they are usually all meant to provide some sort of light, whether it be infrared, visible or ultraviolet. There are low current LED's meant for low power lighting applications and there are high current LED's meant for applications where high light intensity and power is required. Some LED's definitely need a large heatsink to operate at their rated voltage/current so that damage will not occur. Flash LED's are a type of high current LED, usually requiring somewhere around 500mA to 700mA or more and if left on for too long at their max current, they WILL get damaged, which is why they have to be driven at lower currents when providing light for extended periods of time, but not get damaged. A typical LED used for general purposes may only need somewhere around 10 - 20mA of current and no, they will not be noticeably warm.

Take this LED for example: It's a PhlatLight LED meant for projection TV's.

It has a built in thermistor for use with a microcontroller to monitor temperature and a copper plate meant to attach to a larger heatsink. Depending on the color, red green or blue, the voltage ranges between: 2.3V to 4.4V typical. Not a big deal, right? Your phone battery can be made to put out any voltage in that range with the proper power supply. However, your phone battery won't be able to power these properly because, you see, they need an 18 amp current source! Feel free to tell me you can run these LED's at their stated voltage and current with no other heatsink attached for 30 minutes and take no damage... While the current required to produce a similar level of light to these LED's by an incandescent bulb will indeed be much higher if operated at similar voltages, it doesn't make the requirements for these LED's insignificant.

The LED's in phones don't require currents that high but they do require regulation to keep them within safe specs and they also don't include much of a heatsink to keep temperature down when operating at their max, because they are not intended to be operated at max for long periods of time. The only worry I have about a flashlight app for the phone is that it will drive it at max current constantly. On the Omnia, you can tell a difference between flash intensity and "flashlight" intensity when using the included flashlight function on that phone; the flashlight intensity was always less. It all really comes down to the hardware in the phone and what mode the LED driver circuitry is operated in. LED drivers meant for flash can have both flash and torch modes and as long as the software drives the LED in torch mode when operating as a flashlight, then everything should be ok.

 

[tsrdrum]

Light-emitting diode - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

wikipedia is always right. It says the life if LEDs is around 25,000 to 100,000 hours on average, which is equivalent to around 3-11 years straight.

Don't even trip, dawg.

 

[Railz]

Besides draining the battery (by a lot) it won't 'hurt' the phone in anyway, assuming its not already overheating. I know the Flash on the Incredible won't even go off under 15% battery life (or was it 10% mmm)

 

[arunningpir8]

*facepalm* You guys, don't do this to yourselves, you're setting yourself up for failure...

All LED's are NOT created equal. Yes they are usually all meant to provide some sort of light, whether it be infrared, visible or ultraviolet. There are low current LED's meant for low power lighting applications and there are high current LED's meant for applications where high light intensity and power is required. Some LED's definitely need a large heatsink to operate at their rated voltage/current so that damage will not occur. Flash LED's are a type of high current LED, usually requiring somewhere around 500mA to 700mA or more and if left on for too long at their max current, they WILL get damaged, which is why they have to be driven at lower currents when providing light for extended periods of time, but not get damaged. A typical LED used for general purposes may only need somewhere around 10 - 20mA of current and no, they will not be noticeably warm.

Take this LED for example: It's a PhlatLight LED meant for projection TV's.

It has a built in thermistor for use with a microcontroller to monitor temperature and a copper plate meant to attach to a larger heatsink. Depending on the color, red green or blue, the voltage ranges between: 2.3V to 4.4V typical. Not a big deal, right? Your phone battery can be made to put out any voltage in that range with the proper power supply. However, your phone battery won't be able to power these properly because, you see, they need an 18 amp current source! Feel free to tell me you can run these LED's at their stated voltage and current with no other heatsink attached for 30 minutes and take no damage... While the current required to produce a similar level of light to these LED's by an incandescent bulb will indeed be much higher if operated at similar voltages, it doesn't make the requirements for these LED's insignificant.

The LED's in phones don't require currents that high but they do require regulation to keep them within safe specs and they also don't include much of a heatsink to keep temperature down when operating at their max, because they are not intended to be operated at max for long periods of time. The only worry I have about a flashlight app for the phone is that it will drive it at max current constantly. On the Omnia, you can tell a difference between flash intensity and "flashlight" intensity when using the included flashlight function on that phone; the flashlight intensity was always less. It all really comes down to the hardware in the phone and what mode the LED driver circuitry is operated in. LED drivers meant for flash can have both flash and torch modes and as long as the software drives the LED in torch mode when operating as a flashlight, then everything should be ok.

Time for your own facepalm

Do you really think that a small 3.7V battery is going to power a super powered LED that has a high current driver that's bigger than the size of the phone itself? Nada. These LED's are no more than SMD's, and like stated earlier, will not be damaged if left on. If you would actually look at the internals of the phone you would know this.

However if you take your phone apart and see that giant heatsink folded up in there, then take a picture and share so we know not to run them

 

[Blackrad11]

i do not use flashlight apps but i do when i need it really fast is i just go to my video recording and turn it on the led lights up and when i am done i delete the video easy as sead and done

 

[AHanks12]

Time for your own facepalm

Do you really think that a small 3.7V battery is going to power a super powered LED that has a high current driver that's bigger than the size of the phone itself? Nada. These LED's are no more than SMD's, and like stated earlier, will not be damaged if left on. If you would actually look at the internals of the phone you would know this.

However if you take your phone apart and see that giant heatsink folded up in there, then take a picture and share so we know not to run them

Wow, this guy must be related to Nick Holonyak! I've never seen anyone take an LED so seriously before.

(BTW, Nick Holonyak is the inventer of the LED.)

 

[Jakaro]

I've worked at a casino for 6 years now, i was a bench technition for a while. All of the buttons on the machine have L.E.D. under them, they never burn out, and there is a lot of heat emitted. The only reason they would have to be changed, was due to the button being smashed.

 

[kibble]

Time for your own facepalm

Do you really think that a small 3.7V battery is going to power a super powered LED that has a high current driver that's bigger than the size of the phone itself? Nada. These LED's are no more than SMD's, and like stated earlier, will not be damaged if left on. If you would actually look at the internals of the phone you would know this.

Time to return the facepalm favor to you.

If you'd have taken the time to read the whole post, which you probably didn't, you'd have seen that I already took care of said issue. I wrote and I quote: "However, your phone battery won't be able to power these properly because, you see, they need an 18 amp current source!"

Yes, they are SMD components inside the phone, but LED's are not just about voltage, or size. But what would I know... I only design and make my own circuit boards and power supplies...

And no, those PhlatLight LED's aren't bigger than the phone itself. They're actually rather small. Maybe about the size of a quarter including plate and all. I was going to order some a while ago, but never ended up going through with it. They're rather pricey.

I have taken my Incredible apart plenty of times already, looking for ways to do hardware mods, to know what the inside looks like, thank you very much...

 

[AHanks12]

Time to return the facepalm favor to you.

If you'd have taken the time to read the whole post, which you probably didn't, you'd have seen that I already took care of said issue. I wrote and I quote: "However, your phone battery won't be able to power these properly because, you see, they need an 18 amp current source!"

Yes, they are SMD components inside the phone, but LED's are not just about voltage, or size. But what would I know... I only design and make my own circuit boards and power supplies...

And no, those PhlatLight LED's aren't bigger than the phone itself. They're actually rather small. Maybe about the size of a quarter including plate and all. I was going to order some a while ago, but never ended up going through with it. They're rather pricey.

I have taken my Incredible apart plenty of times already, looking for ways to do hardware mods, to know what the inside looks like, thank you very much...

Ding, Ding, Ding!! Okay, that's the bell. It's a TKO!!!!