USB thumb drives seem fairly simple, nothing hazardous…. but Lexar has recalled several models of the Firefly series as well as the JumpDrive Secure II, 1GB model. The affected Firefly sizes are… 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB. They apparently have a “risk of burns to consumers and property damage.” I would assume the risk is ONLY when they’re plugged in to a USB port. I wonder if it has to do with the circuit for the LED light. USB provides 5 volts power and LED’s can be quite particular about getting the exact voltage needed. In a LED circuit you usually have a resistor to bleed off the un-necessary voltage. Once I built a light with about 18 white LED’s and I ran into a “design failure” in my first attempt (didn’t take into account the wattage rating for the LED.) and so the first mockup had a smoking resistor.
Tag: LED
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Electronics and Surplus stuff
For some time I’ve meant to do a post on some of my favorite places to find odd electronics components (and surplus stuff…) Something about electronics components is that there’s so much potential… anyway, I just placed an order with All Electronics for a handful of odds and ends. They’re probably the newest place on my “I’ve got to look at the catalog when it comes in” list. You’ll find pretty much nothing (or very little) in the way of finished consumer electronics….