The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

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Discrete LM3909: Green LED at 1.15 V

The green-LED discrete LM3909 is still flashing, even with its AA NiMH cells burned down to 1.15 V:

LM3909 green LED - 1.15 V NiMH
LM3909 green LED – 1.15 V NiMH

If the truth be known, one of the cells is now reverse-charged to 200 mV, so that’s a bit beyond as low as it can go.

The flash period has stretched to 8.7 s:

LM3909 green LED - 1.17 V - 8.7s period
LM3909 green LED – 1.17 V – 8.7s period

The circuit boosts the battery by 800 mV to put 1.94 V across the green LED at the start of each flash:

LM3909 green LED - 1.15 V - V LED
LM3909 green LED – 1.15 V – V LED

Admittedly, the LED isn’t particularly bright at 2.8 mA:

LM3909 green LED - 1.15 V - LED current
LM3909 green LED – 1.15 V – LED current

But it’s still flashing!

Swapping the cells into the LM3909 with a blue LED doesn’t produce any blinking, which is about what the earlier tests showed.

Comments

2 responses to “Discrete LM3909: Green LED at 1.15 V”

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