Well I'm about to put some LEDs in my window switches, and I thought I would use the write-up done by a recent org member, here is the link to his cardomain page and the write-up itself:

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/479058/5

Now while reading the write-up, I noticed, this:

" Notice that inside the led, there are two pieces of metal and one is bigger if the two. The one that is bigger is Negative, and the smaller one is positive. This is very important. Now, notice that on the board, the negative is always on the left side of the led. You must install the new LED's in the same way. "

Now, I'm guessing that he is referring to the LED that is already on the switches, saying that the longer "pin or peice of metal" is the negative, and the smaller is positive. With the LEDs that I have, the longer side is positive and shorter is negative. Does this mean that the longer side of the switch board will be replaced with the shorter side of my LED? I'm just a little confused so if someone can clarify or link me to another write-up as a reference that would be great. Thanks!

 

The longer connector (thin piece of metal coming down out of the bulb) is negative.

In case you already cut it down, you can look inside the bulb.
One side in the bulb is thin, one side in the bulb is fat.
The fat side inside the bulb, is positive.

Don't worry if you already tried it, and it was backwards. The LED's won't burn themselves if they were only put in backwards.

Good luck with your LED'ing!

 

This is what I dont understand, Ive wired these LEDs before, and the only way they would work when I connected them to a 12v battery, was if I put a 12v resistor on the long part, if not the bulb woudl just burn. If i did it reverse the bulb wouldnt even turn on. Basically, MY LEDs are positive on the longer peice....but you're saying that the fatter peice inside of the bulb is positive, even though when I follow it, it ends up being a shorter peice.

 

The fatter piece inside the LED is the negative while the thinner piece is the positive.

Just look at the green LED's on the original circuit board. For me, I desoldered all but one green LED so I can use that as a reference to see which way is positive and negative. I just did this 2 days ago and it's great. If you need help feel free to send me an IM

 

Thanks now I understand, that really helped, it came out better than I expected.