Swapping to a different colour LED

[unrise_lyrical]

So I want to swap over the tempo LED in a TR626 from a red one to a blue one for shits and giggles. AFAIK, blue requires more voltage I believe...so I figured swapping the blue one in for the red one would just mean its a bit dimmer? As I have said in countless other posts, i am a bit of a newbie when it comes to this stuff so I would rather ask first instead of blowing something up :/ thanks guys

[Wilba]

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/led.htm

You are right - blue LEDs need more voltage to operate. If you can look at that webpage, if a red LED has a voltage drop of (eg.) 2V, then for 5V supply, there's 3V drop across the current limiting resistor. A blue LED typically has a 3.5V voltage drop, so a 1.5V drop across the resistor.

Ohm's Law: V=IR

Divide both sides by R: V/R=I

if you halve V, then current will be halved. Your blue LED will probably get half the current the red LED would get, assuming 5V supply (pretty good assumption). If the supply is higher, it would get more than half.

However, I would guess the TR626 would have old, cheap, not-so-bright red LEDs and you're replacing with a new, superbright blue LED, so it will probably be brighter even though it would get less current than a red LED.

[unrise_lyrical]

thanks for the reply wilba. so basically, there isnt any real risk in trying anyway? the guy at jaycar said "i am not guaranteeing it wont destroy the drum machine" and i know he was just covering his ass but that made me a bit iffy about doing it :( not to mention they are bloody ripoff merchants there....$5 for one LED. doesn't really bother me because it gave me something to do today and $5 for a day of entertainment is cheap...but really...that is just rediculous

[unrise_lyrical]

I finished putting it all back in :) it works awesomely! its interesting, its a tad bit harder to tell which is beat 1 of the bar now...if you speed it up enough its obvious but nowhere near as much as with the red one...not sure why though. And you are right...it is WAY brighter :) i love it!