Circuit help

Hi all, I firstly just wanted to say how helpful and informative this site is there is so much information and help on here. I am woodworker but looking into making a busy led board for a family member. I don't really have much knowledge of designing circuits so wanted to know if you could help me with this part. Ideally I'm looking at having a wooden board with around 8-10 switches all operating 1 or 2 led diodes each, I'm wanting to use a mix of different switches and different colour let's would that be possible to then run of a 9v or a few AA batteries?

by Jamiel01
January 11, 2023

9V seems way too high. You can probably go very well with 5V if not 3.3V as long as you have one single LED in series. Consider 15 mA to 20 mA per LED if not under direct sunlight. Or maybe as low as 5 mA if in a dark environment.

As for the setting, you can use push button (normally close) which is more "to these days" than a light switch we have on our walls. But that is a matter of look, not very technical.

For the circuit itself, if you plan do modify it from time to time, I would consider to use an MCU (a micro controller) such as an Arduino: it is easier to modify a program than to reroute wires.

You can also consider multicolored LED: less LED to secure in place on a board.

by vanderghast
January 13, 2023

1 Answer

Answer by Jamiel01

Thankyou for your reply vanderghast I'm quite new to the electronics side you couldn't give me a little diagram of how I would do this in relation to wiring and resistors etc could you?

+1 vote
by Jamiel01
January 14, 2023

Note that individual LED comes with a long leg and a short leg. The long leg should be placed toward the + side of the battery, and the shorter leg should be placed toward the - side of the battery (or ground). If the legs have been trimmed, you should be able to spot, near the base of the LED's dome, a cut slicing the otherwise circular ring supporting the dome. That "cut" indicates the side of the initially shorter leg.

I suggest that you use hatch push-button for switches (push once, the light comes on, push once again, it turns off, and so on). But you can use standard SPST wall switches too.

You can add more LED (to the right of the sketch), but the battery must be able to supply the total current (around 15 mA per LED turned on).

by vanderghast
January 14, 2023

22 gage wire is more than enough.

by vanderghast
January 14, 2023

Your Answer

You must log in or create an account (free!) to answer a question.

Log in Create an account


Go Ad-Free. Activate your CircuitLab membership. No more ads. Save unlimited circuits. Run unlimited simulations.

Search Questions & Answers


Ask a Question

Anyone can ask a question.

Did you already search (see above) to see if a similar question has already been answered? If you can't find the answer, you may ask a question.


About This Site

CircuitLab's Q&A site is a FREE questions and answers forum for electronics and electrical engineering students, hobbyists, and professionals.

We encourage you to use our built-in schematic & simulation software to add more detail to your questions and answers.

Acceptable Questions:

  • Concept or theory questions
  • Practical engineering questions
  • “Homework” questions
  • Software/hardware intersection
  • Best practices
  • Design choices & component selection
  • Troubleshooting

Unacceptable Questions:

  • Non-English language content
  • Non-question discussion
  • Non-electronics questions
  • Vendor-specific topics
  • Pure software questions
  • CircuitLab software support

Please respect that there are both seasoned experts and total newbies here: please be nice, be constructive, and be specific!

About CircuitLab

CircuitLab is an in-browser schematic capture and circuit simulation software tool to help you rapidly design and analyze analog and digital electronics systems.