I am trying to make a motion activated light with my Microbit. I have a 1W superbright LED and its clear the Microbit won't supply the current needed for this LED. So I'm using a 5V USB micro-B with a LD1117 for 5v:3V and a resistor to power the LED which works fantastically and is more than bright enough. My question is how can I use the microbit to control the LED? I want the brightness of the USB power but the control of the Microbit.
Hello Tyris and welcome!
If I understood right, you just want simply on/off connection to your led controlled by micro:bit.
You need to use transistor or mosfet etc etc, which will work as a driver and handle higher currents which led requires.
You can use use p-channel mosfet for example. This kind of Mosfet is little bit overkill here, but great to understand concept.
Here is source to understand what you are trying to accomplish:
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/transistor/tran_7.html
Attach your led as in image and calculate needed resistor.
some help from here to understand current limiting
https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/219)
Those are just first links which appeared from google but there is tons of articles about this subject if those are not enough which I provided here.
