Electrical and Computer Engineering

867 readers

1 users here now

Electrical and computer engineering (ECE) community, for professionals and learners. Discuss ECE related topics here, for instance digital design, signal processing, circuit analysis, electromagnetics, microelectronics, power electronics, RF electronics, etc.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

phreedf

dragontamer

Can I break my monitor's LED? (lemy.lol)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/ece

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I own a Samsung monitor, and when it's in standby mode the LED blinks all night. My hearing is so sensitive, and my room so quiet, that I can actually hear the LED powering on and off.

So, every night I power it off manually. Sometimes I forget as I turn my PC off, and as I'm laying comfortably in bed, falling asleep, I hear it cycling, so I have to get out of bed, walk over, and turn it off, which delays my sleep.

At this point I'm tempted to take off the bottom panel and break the LED with a screwdriver, but I'm worried that this might change how the current flows through the monitor's circuit board.

I would appreciate any advice, suggestions or insights, thanks in advance!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] CharlesMangione 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I strongly recommend against it as you will probably break your monitor trying to get the sealed case open, but if you did get to the LED and cut it out, measure the resistance, and replace it with a resistor of similar resistance, that should nip any changes to current flow in the bud. Again, I stress, the most likely thing that happens here is you break your monitor trying to open it.

Personally, I recommend you just set a reminder to turn it off before you go to sleep.

[–] agent_flounder 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The thing is LEDs are non-linear devices; they don't really follow Ohm's law and you can't measure the resistance with an ohmmeter.

If you want to sub a resistor to ensure the same current draw you could measure the LED current and voltage drop in circuit and then calculate what resistor to use in its stead.

I wouldn't worry about it, though. Most standard indicator LEDs run less than 20mA (because that's often their max rated current and to extend their lifetime, designs usually run LEDs well below that limit). I can't imagine any sane design that would blow up if that load wasn't present.

[–] CharlesMangione 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah well that's what I get for giving electrical engineering advice with an electrician's education. I should go to school.