These are amazingly bright ceramic filaments with microscopic LED lights inside. When connected to 3V DC power, they light up with 360-degree light.

Description

We've all seen LED light filaments—they're the little bright strips inside of "Edison Bulbs" and similar retro-type lighting fixtures.  Problem is, the filaments inside run on very high voltages, so adapting them for use with hobby projects can be tricky.  Also, you can pretty much only find them in warm white.

We had these filaments custom-made for us, and they are amazing.  They run on just 3V DC, so no need to mess with dangerous transformers or high voltages.  Plus, they are still just as bright as their higher-voltage cousins, so you don't sacrifice any brightness for the sake of safety.

Because we had these filaments custom-made, we were also able to get them made in different colors, so now you can add extremely bright color that's also incredibly vivid to any model or lighting project. They are perfect for making model lightsabers, lasers, or any other element that needs to be REALLY bright.

The photos for these filaments really don't capture how BRIGHT they are.  It's impossible to truly capture it on camera—you need to see them for yourself to believe they're real.

Details

We are selling these raw filaments in packs of five, so you get five filaments in each pack, in your choice of color.

The filaments measure 38mm long and 1.5mm thick.  Note that the 38mm length is the total length of the filament (including the metal tabs on the ends)—the actual length of the LED element itself is closer to 30mm.

They are EXTREMELY fragile and can be snapped very easily.   Underneath the rubberized coating, they are ceramic, so think of these (and handle them) like really thin, fragile pieces of your grandmother's fine china.  If you've never worked with these before, you might want to order a few extra just to have on hand.

Unfortunately, because of the way the filaments are manufactured, they cannot be cut to a shorter length. If you need the exposed lighting area to be shorter than the length of the filaments, you can cover the unwanted LED elements with black heat-shrink tubing, or you can use some other sort of masking technique.

Power

Each end of the filament has a metal tab—one side is the positive terminal (indicated with a small hole in the tab) and the other side is the negative terminal.  To use them, you need to very carefully solder wires onto each end of the filament, then connect to 3V DC.  If you are using a higher voltage power supply, you will need to use resistors—we use 1.5 watt 22 ohm resistors to use the filaments with 5V DC, but you will need to calculate your own resistor values if you use a different voltage.  Each filament (all colors) has a forward voltage drop of approximately 2.56v. 

Also, these filaments use a LOT of power—about 120mA each.  That's like 10 of our Pico LEDs all in one tiny package.  Keep that in mind when selecting a power supply—coin cell batteries likely won't work very well (or for very long), so make sure your power supply is as powerful as these filaments.

We have big plans for these little filaments, and we can't wait to see how you use them as well.