I gathered up a soldering gun, solder, needle nose pliers, electrical pliers, some primary wire and electrical tape too since I thought they might be useful.

Since I got a whole bunch of different LEDs with various voltages I knew that I would need a couple different types of resistors, so I just bought a variety pack of 1/2 Watt Carbon Film Resistors (2710306). Resistors - Again, I wasn't too sure what I would need in terms of resistors here either. I figured that would allow me to mix and match and make enough different voltage combinations to make something light up - or at least burn those little suckers out in a puff of smelly plastic smoke. I got: 2760307 5mm Red LED 1.7 V 2760351 5MM Yellow LED 2.1 V 2760036 Flasher Red LED 5 V 2760041 2 Pack Red LED 2.6 V 2760086 Jumbo Red LED 2.4V Power Supply - I really didn't know what I would need to power them so I bought some 9V batteries and some 1.5V AA's. If you want to learn about what these materials are check out these wikipedia entries: LEDs Power supply Resistors Materials: LEDs - I basically just reached into the drawer at Radioshack and pulled out anything that wasn't more than $1 or $2 per LED. From what I have read from other LED instructables wiring in a resistor is almost always a good idea. To light up an LED you need at the very minimum the LED itself and a power supply. For this project I ended up going to Radioshack because its close and a lot of people have access to it - but be warned their prices are really high for this kind of stuff and there are all kinds of low cost places to buy LEDs online.

The first step was to buy some supplies and figure out what I would need to experiment with. I know that there are many projects already posted that contain information about how to wire LEDs for simple projects - LED Throwies, LED Beginner Project: Part 2 and 9v LED flashlight - teh best evarrr!, but I think that there could still be some use for a detailed step by step explanation about the basics of LEDs for anyone who could use it. So I wasn't completely honest - I have used LEDs once or twice before for simple applications, but I never really knew what I was doing, and since so many projects on instructables use LEDs, I thought I might as well teach myself and post about it too.

How does the led work