On Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:59:22 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article
,
NT wrote:
The LED would need a rectifier of course.

You just parallel a reverse connected diode to the LED for AC. Plus a
suitable current limiting resistor, of course.

That's neat. That will bypasses the LED on the reverse cycle, and is
probably easier to wire in than a series diode. It allows you to use a
tiny low voltage diode whereas the series one needs to be a bigger mains
rated 1N400x series. OTOH it draws twice the current of the series
solution, but still a mA or so.

Doesn't the 1/2 wave rectification halve the brightness though? An
electrolytic capacitor in parallel should solve that if it doesn't need
too many uF's - haven't calculated the size.

Phil