Eli5; Why do halogen lights get burning hot but LEDS don’t get hot at all?
In: Technology
Halogen bulbs are designed as the worst conductors possible. The tungsten wire in the bulbs acts as this poor conductor, so instead of electricity running “smoothly” through it like in a copper wire, the tungsten filament doesn’t allow much of the current to slow through and instead sucks it up. The energy that it takes into itself is then expressed as heat, and that heat produces light the same reason the hot coil in a radiator produces light. LEDs work via a semiconductor, using electrons to produce light instead of heat. However, where as heat is the goal of a halogen bulb, heat is a biproduct of LEDs. LEDs still produce heat, although significantly less than other bulbs. In my high school computer science class, we used a basic kit that came with an Arduino board, bread board, wires, LEDs, etc. it was know that if you wired your LEDs the wrong way (not using proper resistors) you could get your LEDs hot if you left them on long enough and eventually the plastic of the LED would melt from the inside
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