940nm IR LED, Vishay TSAL4400, 3mm package, +-25deg

Although a lot of us Makers look at Discrete LED Units and immediately start thinking of how much colour and fun they can add to projects, some LEDs are built more for functionality, rather than for colour or brightness, such as these TSAL4400 Infrared LEDs. These IR LEDs, or IREDs for short, are high powered Infrared emitters designed more for function, and are the same kinds of emitters used in television remotes and other low-power wireless tools and devices. They are excellent for free air transmissions, as they are invisible to (most) humans, allowing for devices or objects to communicate with each other, without anyone even knowing that it’s happening.

Compared to the TSAL6200 IR LEDs that we stock, these units are designed with a relatively wide angle of radiance, offering a 25° radius around the centre, giving a total radiance diameter of 50°. This makes it a great choice for applications in which you don’t need it to be too directional, and would like a remote, for example, to work by simply pointing it in a general direction. These units also offer a nice low forward voltage as well as a high radiant flux of 40mW, being capable of up to 100mA forward current, making them a really great choice in the world of IREDs.

Typical Applications for these TSAL4400 940nm IR LEDs:

While these are primarily designed for function, they can also be used for a range of fun projects too, with invisible laser traps or people-detectors being a common use case, and other applications extending all the way into unique and novel electronic musical instruments. Of course, one of the best things about being a Maker is that you get to decide what you want to use all of these Components and other goodies for, and if you’ve got a cool idea, we want to be ones to supply the parts you need to make it a reality.

Additional Resources:

• If you need to work out power supply and resistor requirements, this simple but Super Handy LED Calculator is ideal for quickly checking what you’ll need for a variety of serial and parallel configurations.