Testing the visual alarm

In this section, we will focus on how to test the super-bright LED, as well as how to test the speed of the SOS message shown by the LED.

You can test the super-bright LED to establish whether it works OK with a power supply, as shown in Figure 6.10:

Figure 6.10 – Connecting the super-bright LED to a battery set

The following are the steps for connecting everything according to Figure 6.10:

1. Connect the super-bright LED's anode (its longest leg) to a 1 k ohm resistor.
2. Connect the resistor to the battery set's positive terminal. The battery set should provide around 3 V (supplied by two AA batteries), which are enough for testing our super-bright LED.
3. Connect the battery set's negative terminal to the super-bright LED's cathode (its shortest leg).

After connecting everything as per the preceding steps, the LED should glow. If not, check the LED polarity, and whether the batteries...