TO-220 Style LED

[madmaxbryan]

Found this odd white LED chip at the local electronics surplus store. I've never seen an LED in a TO-220 style package. I was told it was 15v 100mA, I can only get about 12.5v 100mA and it gets real hot real quick. It has a large copper heatsink running from the LED dies to the backside of the package. It doesn't seem to put out anymore light then a standard 3mm LED or SMD LED. Anyone know what purpose it might serve? There are a lot of high tech industries in the area so it might be a specific wavelength or something.

[bjcuizon]

Might be for some automotive purpose as it has some spade type lugs/terminals

[schmitt trigger]

That is what I was thinking also...an automotive application.

It also appears that the device must be attached to a heat-sink

[madmaxbryan]

Yes it definitely needs a heatsink, it gets pretty hot at 12.5v. The spade lugs do scream automotive, I just cant think of any application that would use an LED with this style package over SMD or a tradition style automotive bulb. They're kind of neat, i might pick up a few more next time im at the surplus.

[mariush]

Could be for blinkers, to signal left and right on cars. Would not overheat that much if the pulse lengths are small.

[djQUAN]

Should be more. I recall Philips made a similar looking led for car headlights, you could look in their catalogs of anything similar. I would like to get my hands on one of those to play with too

[madmaxbryan]

Well after doing some digging around based on what everyone here has said suggested i think i found a close match. It looks like a Luxeon Altilon LED headlight, seems like they are meant to take 1000mA and not 100mA, might have to put this on a heatsink and crank it up to see how it looks.

[bjcuizon]

Well after doing some digging around based on what everyone here has said suggested i think i found a close match. It looks like a Luxeon Altilon LED headlight, seems like they are meant to take 1000mA and not 100mA, might have to put this on a heatsink and crank it up to see how it looks.

Ooh,...so that's why your getting a little amount of light like the 3mm ones emit.