i have been told that cars can generate a negitive voltage transient upto 400v, therfore led's in cars should always be protected my a diode becuase leds can usually only handle negitive voltages upto 5v. is this correct? and if so what would be a suitable surface mount replacement for a 1n4004 diode so i can save space, maybe a toshiba U1GC44 rectifier diode or a fairchild GF1A rectifier ?
i have been told that cars can generate a negitive voltage transient upto 400v, therfore led's in cars should always be protected my a diode becuase leds can usually only handle negitive voltages upto 5v. is this correct? and if so what would be a suitable surface mount replacement for a 1n4004 diode so i can save space, maybe a toshiba U1GC44 rectifier diode or a fairchild GF1A rectifier ?
1N4001 - 1N4007 are available in SMD version. They look just the same (and equally big) as the normal version. Except they have no legs.
If you take a normal one, and cut off the legs real short it'll be almost the same
If you put the diode in series, it has to have high reverse breakdown voltage, and fast negative transients can still pass through it due to reverse recovery time and junction capacitance.
Put the diode in parallel with the LED (anode to cathode), and this all goes away. You can use almost any diode that can handle the impulse current (400v/Rlim, where Rlim is your series current limiting resistor). Reverse breakdown voltage is not an issue, because each diode protects the other from reverse breakdown.