Hello! I bought one of these 3W IR LEDs, thinking I could add night vision to my home-made security cameras. I have lots of USB webcams, as well as a couple old android phones with built in webcams, set up as security cameras around my house, and they all seem to pick up infrared light (testing using a TV remote pointed at the camera) just fine.
So the LED arrived, and I wired it up, but its not very bright. No where near as bright as the people on the comments page claim, they say it lit up their whole room! Mine doesn't appear much brighter than a TV remote LED. Although I can still see the red glow coming from the LED with my bare eyesight (its a near-IR, not far-IR, so it has a dim red glow).
I'm supplying the LED with a 1.5v alkaline battery, and a 3 ohm 3 watt resistor in series with the LED, and my DMM says that it is drawing about 40mA. Now the web page doesn't say the LED's current, just the voltage and wattage. But shouldn't it be more like 2 amps? Since its a 1.5v 3w LED? I even briefly tried it without a resistor, and it only drew 60mA.
Am I doing something wrong? Or is this how much current its supposed to draw, and I just can't see its full brightness because all my digital cameras have IR filters on them?
So the LED arrived, and I wired it up, but its not very bright. No where near as bright as the people on the comments page claim, they say it lit up their whole room! Mine doesn't appear much brighter than a TV remote LED. Although I can still see the red glow coming from the LED with my bare eyesight (its a near-IR, not far-IR, so it has a dim red glow).
I'm supplying the LED with a 1.5v alkaline battery, and a 3 ohm 3 watt resistor in series with the LED, and my DMM says that it is drawing about 40mA. Now the web page doesn't say the LED's current, just the voltage and wattage. But shouldn't it be more like 2 amps? Since its a 1.5v 3w LED? I even briefly tried it without a resistor, and it only drew 60mA.
Am I doing something wrong? Or is this how much current its supposed to draw, and I just can't see its full brightness because all my digital cameras have IR filters on them?