r/AskElectronics • u/golfjevw • 18h ago
What is the best way to disable those leds?
What is the best method to disable the leds in this charging pad?
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u/broooooooce 18h ago
Electrical tape :P
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u/Dewey_Oxberger 8h ago
This is the way. Or, painters tape if you want a tiny bit of light to shine through. Just cover them up with tape.
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u/Alexander-Wright 17h ago
Permanently? Just snip them off.
As others have suggested, tape is a good reversible option.
You could desolder them, but would you ever find them if you wanted to put them back? Hot tip: tape to inside of the case.
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u/I_knew_einstein 12h ago
I'd desolder them, turn them 90 degrees and solder only one side to one of the pads. Turns them off, but they can easily be found when needed.
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u/fredlllll 15h ago
i would rather cut the traces, those can be soldered back together
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u/Lasse_Bierstrom 16h ago
Find the series resistor, unsolder it, and solder it rotated/shifted on on pad for the future.
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u/thundafox 17h ago
It looks like they are in series and desoldering one will stop all.
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u/gsel1127 10h ago
Looks like they’re all in parallel to me. One long trace on the anodes and all the cathodes on a ground plane.
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u/agent_kater 9h ago
Seems more reasonable. Creating the high voltage required for series LEDs doesn't really make sense in a USB powered device.
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u/Adversement 8h ago
If they are plain LED, such solution would not really work. The small differences between individual LED forward voltages would cause some of them to pull much more current that others.
All parallel would need individual series resistors, and I see none.
All series would need higher voltages, which can be done with suitable LED driver chip (but would be also not ideal, unless such chips are cheap as chips these days, or the circuit needed to generate the higher voltage in any case for the charging coil in the middle).
So, there is probably something a bit more hidden in plain sight. Reversible modifications are safest bets in case someone has really (cost) optimised the design.
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u/grislyfind 7h ago
If one LED pulls more current, voltage goes up due to internal resistance, so they actually share current quite well.
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u/PedroFaro1 7h ago
Just cut one track on one led and if they are all in series then happy days otherwise it could be 3 in series which means cutting another few tracks. Should be simple enough.
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u/sparky124816 1h ago
Totally agree. Use an exacto and slice the trace at an angle, slightly peeling one side up. This way you could easily solder the traces back together if need be.
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u/SolitaryMassacre 4h ago
They look to be in series. So removing one should turn them all off. Then if you want them back on you can just resolder it back. As someone else said, tape the removed one somewhere inside the case
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u/Findron Digital electronics 17h ago
It seems like they are connected 4 parallel in 4 series. I would say that the best way to disable light is simply getting rid of those LED's by desoldering them. You can desolder one and see where it gets you, maybe you can turn all of them off by desoldering only four. You can also find where they are getting power from with a multimeter and desolder corresponding IC but it will only work if they have a separate voltage regulator, different from the rest of the circuit.
If you don't have tools to do this job, you can probably just take something sharp and hard to crush those LDS's, they're quite brittle. Try to get rid most of it to ensure you don't have a short circuit.
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u/frank26080115 17h ago
buy a bottle of black nail polish to paint over them with
or paint marker? not sure if that's thick enough
or liquid electrical tape, which is black by default and quite thick
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u/Ya-Dikobraz 16h ago
Snap them off with some pliers or similar. Not like you are ever going to use them again.
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u/Lostdotfish 16h ago
Removing or disabling the 2 either side of the usb c port will stop the rest working by the looks of it.
Either desolder them or use a sharp craft knife to cut the trace on the usb port side of each diode.
Edit - actually they are in series all around the edge. Disable any one and they'll all turn off. I'd cut the trace somewhere away from the usb port at the top of your photo. Top left.
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u/FM_Hikari 15h ago
If it's just the glow, use tape. Won't affect any functioning.
If you want to actually physically remove those, desolder them.
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u/Pleasant-Chipmunk-83 9h ago
If you have a soldering tip that's at least as wide as the LEDs, you can use the iron to slide them off of their pads. Aside from that, cutting traces with an x-acto knife will do it too.
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u/S2Nice 8h ago
A dot of liquid tape over each, or go super sloppy and tape over all of them.
The people who design these things are not terribly sharp, because they ignore that many only charge when they go to bed, so this thing has a high likelihood of being used where we sleep. I don't need a bright blue nightlight right next to my head to show me the phone is charging while I try to sleep. A light should only be on when the phone isn't present.
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u/Longjumping_Cut1987 6h ago
Ah, I think I recognise model. Blue lights? You can read by them... I'm afraid to admit but I created a 3d printable ring that squeezes right in and reduces intensity to a nice level. Let me know if you're interested. This is my first post, how best to share? Does Google drive work? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YUj4FonuF4JZ_4TmiZ0eWl1URn6uOP1g/view?usp=drive_link
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u/socalkid77 3h ago
I'd recon if you desolder one of them the rest would no longer work, it's hard to see but I believe they are all/most in series.
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u/deadbody408 1h ago
Looks like they are all connected in a row . You should be able to remove one, and the rest will go iou
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u/HiItsMe01 17h ago
tbh it’s a bit caveman but i’d just smack each of them in the center with a chisel
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u/raaneholmg 16h ago
Electrical engineer secret:
When we fuck up a prototype, we just cut the trace on the board, and if we were wrong we solder on a wire between two pads to get it back.