Using a Transistor Switch with a Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Micro:Bit

This video shows practical examples of the transistor switch in use.

The first example uses a transistor switch to control a large bright LED from a Raspberry Pi. The circuit can also be used with the Arduino and Micro:Bit especially if you increase the number of LEDs being switched.

The example code provided can be used on a Raspberry Pi (using GPIO Zero) an Arduino (using the standard blink example) and the micro:bit using simple block code. The Raspberry Pi source code is available from my book page.

Darlington transistor circuit

The second example features a darlington transistor used to switch a much larger light. There are 2.5W LED lights from PoundLand

These need the extra gain from the darlington pair to ensure they can be fully switched on using the small current available from a Raspberry Pi GPIO pin. The circuit diagram is shown below.

More examples

• Find out more about the book on Learn Electronics with Raspberry Pi
• Digital Electronics, including Darlington Array IC

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